Add an AI Chatbot to Your Website: A Practical Checklist
A good website assistant answers questions at any hour. A bad one frustrates customers. The difference is preparation.
Step 1: Choose the Job
Pick two or three things it should do well:
- Answer FAQs about prices, hours and delivery.
- Help people find products or services.
- Capture enquiries and book appointments.
- Hand over to a human when needed.
Step 2: Prepare Your Content
- Gather accurate, current FAQs, policies and product information.
- Remove outdated pages.
- Write down what it must never say (legal, medical and pricing promises).
Step 3: Pick an Approach
- Hosted chatbot builder: quickest, no coding.
- Platform built-in assistant (your e-commerce or helpdesk tool).
- Custom build using an AI API for full control.
Step 4: Set Guardrails
- Answer only from your content, and say "I don't know" otherwise.
- Escalate to a human for complaints, refunds and sensitive topics.
- Show a clear "you're chatting with AI" notice.
- Don't collect sensitive data in chat.
Step 5: Test
Ask the 50 most common questions, plus awkward ones: rude, off-topic, trick questions and attempts to override its rules.
Step 6: Launch and Improve
- Review transcripts weekly.
- Add missing answers.
- Track resolution rate, handover rate and customer satisfaction.
Privacy and Compliance
Update your privacy notice, check where chat data is stored, and follow consent rules in your region.
Takeaway
Start small, ground it in your real content, and give customers an easy route to a person.
