What a chatbot is
How a chatbot differs from the support agent, what it can and can't do, and when to use one.
A chatbot is a help chat that sits in the corner of your website or customer portal. Visitors type a question and get an answer straight away, written from your own help pages.
It is a separate tool from the support agent that works on your tickets. Each platform can have several chatbots, for example one for your public website and one inside your customer portal.
Chatbot or support agent?#
| Chatbot | Support agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Who uses it | Visitors to your website or portal | Your team, through the Queue |
| Answers from | Your help pages only | Your code, logs, Kubernetes and databases (read-only) |
| Speed | Answers in seconds | Takes a few minutes per ticket |
| Approval | None. Answers go to the visitor straight away | A person approves every reply (unless you turn on automatic replies) |
| Can change things | No | Can propose code fixes and changes, which only happen after approval |
Nobody approves chatbot answers
Because answers go straight to visitors, a chatbot is kept on a short leash. It only answers from your help sources. It can't see your code, databases, logs or anyone's account.
What a chatbot can do#
- Answer "how do I…" questions from your help centre.
- Show where an answer came from. If the answer doesn't already link to a help page, visitors see Read more links to up to three pages it used.
- With the default instructions, it also answers in the visitor's language, links to the page it used, and asks one short question back when a question is unclear.
- Suggest the visitor contacts your support team when your help pages don't cover the question. You decide what it says in its instructions.
- Inside a portal, talk about the signed-in visitor's own account, using a short summary your system sends. See Signed-in visitors.
What a chatbot can't do#
- Make up features, prices, policies, steps or contact details. If your help pages don't cover a question, it says it doesn't know.
- Change anything: accounts, bookings, orders or payments. It won't pretend it has.
- Open a support ticket for the visitor. It can only point them to where they can ask for help.
- Talk about any account other than the signed-in visitor's own.
- Accept passwords, card numbers, bank details or ID numbers. If a visitor shares one, it tells them not to and doesn't repeat it.
- Link to pages that aren't in your help sources.
Pointing people to support
If you want the chatbot to link to your contact form or "open a ticket" page, that page must be in your help sources. The chatbot only links to addresses it found there. Then say in its instructions when to suggest it.
Rules come in a fixed order#
Every answer follows these, in this order. When two disagree, the earlier one wins.
- Our safety rules. Fixed. You can read them on the bot's Instructions tab, under Our safety rules, but you can't change them. They keep the chatbot to your help pages and stop visitors talking it out of its rules.
- Your organisation's rules. Rules you set once for every agent and chatbot, under Organisation › Rules. See Rules.
- The bot's own instructions. Tone, what to cover, and what to say when it can't help.
- Your help pages. Treated as reference material, never as instructions.
Anything a visitor types is treated as a question, never as an instruction.
Website bot or portal bot?#
| Public website | Customer portal | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees it | Anyone visiting | Customers who have signed in |
| What it knows | Your help pages | Your help pages, plus a short summary of the visitor's account that your server sends |
| Extra setup | None | Your server signs a short token for each visitor |
| Can be limited to signed-in visitors | No | Yes, with the Only signed-in customers may use this chat switch |
You can put the same chatbot on several websites, or create one bot per place so each has its own look, instructions and conversation log.
Where to find chatbots#
Open a platform and go to Settings › Chatbots. The label at the top says None yet, how many are live, or Off when none is live. Click New chatbot to add one.
The list is a table, one line per chatbot:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Chatbot | Its name, which opens it, and how many of its help sources are ready. |
| Where it's used | The websites it may appear on, and the AI key it answers with. |
| Status | Live or Off. Not ready when something is missing; point at it to see what. N to look at when chats need a look. |
| Last 24 hours | How many questions it got. |
The ⋯ menu at the end of a line has Open, Switch on or Switch off, and Delete….
Each chatbot has five tabs:
| Tab | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Help sources | The help website or help file it answers from. See Help sources. |
| Instructions | How it talks, plus a test chat. See Creating a chatbot. |
| Look | Title, greeting, colour, corner, logo and suggested questions. See Look and feel. |
| Install | The code to paste, the websites, the AI model and key, the daily limit, and signed-in customers. See Installing a chatbot. |
| Conversations | What visitors asked and what it answered. |
Only owners and admins can open a platform's settings, so only they can set up chatbots. Everyone on the platform can read the chats on Chats.
Reading conversations#
Chats, in the platform's tabs at the top, shows one chatbot's conversations at a time. If you have more than one chatbot, pick it from the tabs above the list. A tab shows an amber number when chats need a look, or Off when that chatbot is off. Owners and admins also see a button to open that chatbot's settings.
Each chatbot's Conversations tab, in Settings, shows the same list.
The list is a table, newest first:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Question | The visitor's first question. Click it to read the chat. |
| Who | The signed-in customer's name, or Visitor, with the website it came from. |
| Messages | How many messages the chat has. |
| Last message | When the chat was last active. |
Use Older → and ← Newest at the bottom to move through a long list.
The chat opens in a pop-up, with the visitor's messages on the right and the chatbot's on the left. Each answer shows the help pages it came from under From. If an answer failed, you see Not answered and the reason, for example a problem with the AI key. The visitor only sees a short "Sorry, I can't answer right now" message.
Chats that need a look#
Some chats get an amber label, so you don't have to read them all:
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not in your help | Your help pages didn't have the answer, and the chatbot said so. |
| Couldn't answer | Something went wrong, such as a problem with the AI key. |
| Asked for a person | The visitor asked to talk to someone, or to be called. |
Click Needs a look, above the list, to see only those. It shows how many there are. Click All to see every chat again. When none needs a look, you see All clear.
When you've dealt with one, open it and click Mark as handled. The label changes to Handled. Owners, admins and approvers can do this, also in the phone app's Chats tab.
Use the log to improve your help pages
Chats marked Not in your help show you where your help centre has gaps. Add or improve those pages. Then, on the chatbot's Help sources tab, choose Read again in the source's ⋯ menu.