What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is a conversational agent is powered with AI and uses human language to interact with customers. It is trained on knowledge from your sources. It will converse (using text messages) with humans in natural language.

Why do we need a chatbot?

Chatbots can provide fast answers to customer inquiries and they operate 24x7. It can lead to brand loyalty, reduce operational costs and improve efficiency. (IBM)

How does a chatbot work?

Step 1: User Asks a Question

You type a question into the chatbot on the website, like:
"What are your services?"

Step 2: The Chatbot Receives Your Question

The chatbot takes your question, determines the intent of the question, and prepares to find the best answer.

Step 3: Search for Relevant Information from its knowledge base (Retrieval Step)

Instead of generating a response from scratch, the chatbot uses documents, web pages, and knowledge sources that it is trained on.

Step 4: Process the Retrieved Information

Now, the chatbot has fetched some useful documents, it processes it for the response.

Step 5: Generate a Response (Generation Step)

Using AI language generation (like ChatGPT), the chatbot writes a clear and human-like answer based on the retrieved information. It may simplify complex language to make it easier to understand.

Step 6: Display the Answer

The chatbot sends the final response back to the website chat window, where you see it as a message.

For example, it might say:
"We provide pet grooming services including bathing, brushing, trimming, and styling pet's coat. Would you like to book an appointment?"