AI Chatbots
What to Look For, and What to Ignore
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Four things that actually matter
- Trains on your content — crawl and documents, not a script you write by hand
- Hands over to a person, visibly, on every screen
- Captures leads with the conversation attached
- Reports what it could not answer
The fourth is the one nobody asks about and the one that keeps improving your website for years. Ask to see it before you buy anything.
What you can ignore at small scale
- Elaborate conversation flow builders — a well-trained bot needs few
- Deep enterprise integrations you will not configure
- Sentiment dashboards with no action attached
- Voice, unless you have a specific reason
- Anything requiring a dedicated administrator
Questions for any vendor
| Question | What a good answer sounds like |
|---|---|
| How does it learn our business? | Crawl, documents, description |
| What does it do when it does not know? | Says so, offers a person |
| Can we see unanswered questions? | Yes, as a list you can export |
| What happens to conversation data? | A clear retention answer |
| How long to set up? | Hours, not weeks |
Try before you commit
Any chatbot worth using will let you train it on your own site and test it before you pay. Ask your twenty real questions and see what happens.
A vendor who will only demonstrate on their own content is showing you their content, not your outcome.
Cost should scale with use
Pricing that starts free or very low and grows with message volume suits a small business. Large fixed platform fees rarely do.
Check what happens when you exceed a limit — whether it stops, queues or charges, and whether you are told.
Frequently asked questions
How much should we expect to pay?
Small business chat runs from free tiers to a few tens of pounds or dollars a month at moderate volume. Enterprise pricing is a different market.
Do we need one that integrates with our CRM?
Useful, not essential at the start. Getting leads into your inbox reliably matters more than automatic CRM records on day one.
What about building our own?
Rarely worth it at small scale. The product cost is far below the build and maintenance cost for a standard use case.
How do we compare fairly?
Train two on your own content and ask both the same twenty questions. That comparison takes an afternoon and settles it.
Comparing chat options?
Train SpideyChat on your own site free and ask it your real questions. spideychat.com.