AI chatbot: answers from your sources, hands the rest to your team
An AI chatbot is software that answers customer questions on a website or in WhatsApp using the business's own sources. ALTAI Digital builds chatbots that speak only from the information you provide. When a question has no answer in those sources, the chatbot does not invent one; it hands the conversation to your team with a summary. Customers are told clearly that they are talking to a bot. Written conversations are kept and linked to the customer record.
Many business websites have a chat window with nobody behind it. Messages land in an inbox and are read the next day. Other sites run a ready-made bot that answers every question with the same stock phrases. The customer asks about price, opening hours or availability, and the bot shows a menu or misses the point. The customer closes the window and picks up the phone, which nobody answers at the busiest hour.
A chatbot built on a language model tries to understand the question and answers only from your sources. Those sources are your service list, pricing policy, opening hours, frequently asked questions and documents. If a question has no answer there, the chatbot does not guess. It passes the conversation to someone on your team. That person sees the summary so far and the customer's record, so the customer does not have to start again.
The chatbot's limits are written down at setup. A conversation goes to a person in three cases: a question the sources cannot answer, a customer who asks for a person, and topics you list. Complaints, price negotiation and contracts are on the default list. The greeting tells the customer plainly that they are talking to a bot, and the option to reach a person stays open. Hiding it costs trust.
Below you will find the scope of a chatbot build, the steps and the questions we hear most. Sector pages are listed below. For phone calls, see our voice assistant page; for a WhatsApp line, see WhatsApp automation. We work from Rotterdam and Istanbul, and conversation data is handled under GDPR. Pricing is given after the discovery call, once the channels and the volume of source material are clear.
What goes wrong today
- 01
Nobody behind the chat window
A message typed into the website chat lands in an inbox. Questions sent after hours wait until the next day. The customer writes to a competitor in the meantime, and the window becomes decoration.
- 02
The ready-made bot does not understand
A rule-based bot only responds to preset buttons. When a customer asks in their own words, it falls back to a menu. After a few tries the customer gives up and tries to call instead.
- 03
Fear of the bot getting facts wrong
A general-purpose model tries to answer everything. A bot that quotes the wrong price, hours or terms puts the business in a difficult spot. That worry keeps many businesses from switching a bot on at all.
- 04
Customers repeat themselves after handover
The bot passes an unsolved question to the team, but not the conversation. The team member asks the customer what they need. Explaining it twice wears the customer's patience thin.
- 05
The same questions fill the team's day
Opening hours, address, price range and availability come in all day. Each takes a few minutes and breaks up real work. The questions repeat, yet nobody collects them in one place.
- 06
Conversations are not recorded
Website chats are not linked to the customer record. Nobody knows which questions come up most or which chats turned into sales. When the same customer writes again a week later, the earlier chat cannot be found.
Scope of the build
Answers only from your sources
The chatbot is fed your service list, pricing policy, hours, FAQs and documents. Answers come from those sources. When there is no match, the chatbot does not invent an answer; it hands over to a person. When a source is updated, the answers change the same day.
Handover to a person in three cases
A conversation goes to the team for an unanswerable question, at the customer's request, or when a listed topic comes up. Complaints, price negotiation and contracts are on the default list. We write the list with you at setup.
Handover with a summary
The person taking over sees the summary so far and the customer's record. The customer does not repeat themselves. The record also shows who took the conversation over.
Same chatbot on the website and WhatsApp
The chatbot runs on the website chat and the WhatsApp line from the same sources. There are not two knowledge bases to maintain. On WhatsApp, Meta's twenty-four-hour rule and approved templates apply.
A plain greeting and a way to a person
The greeting tells customers they are talking to a bot. The option to reach a person is open in every message. You write the greeting or approve ours.
Conversation records linked to customers
Written conversations are stored and linked to the customer record. When a customer writes again, the earlier chat is there. Conversations are not used to train models, and storage follows GDPR.
Monthly question and handover report
Each month we report the most common questions and how many chats the bot answered or handed over. Gaps in the sources are listed and filled, and the handover count is tracked month by month.
How the build runs
- 01
Discovery (1 week)
We map the questions arriving on each channel, gather source documents and write the handover list and greeting with you.
- 02
Sources and setup
We organise the sources, connect the chatbot to the website and WhatsApp and route handovers to your team's screen.
- 03
Trial week
The chatbot runs with your team first. Wrong or missing answers go back into the sources and handover rules are adjusted.
- 04
Launch and measure
The chatbot opens to customers. After the first month we report questions, answers and handovers. The first live flow opens in four to eight weeks.
Products used in this build
AI chatbot and voice receptionist
It greets customers on your site and on the phone, answers what it has a source for, and hands the rest to a person.
Request handling
Requests from five channels collect in one list, the draft reply arrives ready, and the decision to send stays with you.
WhatsApp Business integration
Notifications, order tracking and customer conversations gather in the business account; the history stays with the company.
Terms used on this page
- AI chatbot
- Software that understands a written customer question and answers from the business's own sources, passing anything else to a person.
- Source material
- The service list, pricing policy, opening hours, FAQs and documents a chatbot relies on when it answers.
- Handover
- The chatbot passing a conversation, with its summary, to a person on the team, so the customer does not repeat themselves.
- Handover list
- The written list of topics that always go to a person; complaints, price negotiation and contracts are on it by default.
- Greeting
- The opening message that tells customers they are talking to a bot and shows how to reach a person.
ai chatbotFrequently asked questions
The chatbot speaks only from the sources you provide. When a question has no answer there, it hands the conversation to a person instead of inventing one. Gaps show up in the monthly report so the sources can be completed.
In three cases: a question the sources cannot answer, a customer who asks for a person, and topics you list. Complaints, price negotiation and contracts are on the default list.
No. The person taking over sees the summary so far and the customer's record, and picks up where the chatbot stopped.
Yes. The greeting says so, and the option to reach a person is always open. Being open about it also helps customers ask the bot the right questions.
Yes. It uses the same sources on both channels, so there is one knowledge base to maintain. On WhatsApp, Meta's twenty-four-hour rule and approved templates apply.
Written conversations are stored and linked to your customer records. They are not used to train models. Where personal data is kept is set out at setup, in line with GDPR.
The sources are your documents and information. When prices, hours or services change, the sources are updated and the chatbot answers with the new information the same day. Updates can also be part of a monthly maintenance plan.
The first live flow opens in four to eight weeks. The timing depends on the number of channels, the volume of source material and the systems the handover connects to. Your own timeline is set out in the discovery report.
The process first, the proposal after
In a short discovery call we map the process together and tell you plainly whether it is worth automating. If it is not, we say that too.
30 minutes · no preparation needed
