5 Things to Get Right When Adding a Chatbot or Voice Assistant to Your Website
Everyone's adding a chatbot to their website at the moment, or in the process of updating older versions with more intelligent and helpful AI Assistants - and with good reason. Customers want an answer now, not via a contact form that sits in an inbox for three days.
I've seen a fair few of these go live, including our own; and it's usually the same one or two things that get missed. Not the bit people were worried about either.
Here's are our 5 best practices, practical things which you should get right before (and after) you go live:
1. Check whether your chatbot's slowing the site down
This one catches people out more than you'd think. The script fires the second the page opens, before anyone's even scrolled, when most visitors won't touch the chatbot for another ten seconds, if they touch it at all.
So delay it. Let the rest of the page load first, then bring the chatbot in. Most platforms let you do this, WordPress, HubSpot and Webflow included, and it's a small job. Worth doing.
2. Make sure your AI Assistant actually understands people
If your chatbot only understands five or six pre-written questions, it's not really helping anyone, it's just there. Someone asks something slightly off-script and gets nothing back. They leave, and you've probably lost them.
Generative AI actually picks up on what someone means, even when they've not phrased it very well, which, let's be honest, is most of us most of the time. That's really the whole difference.
3. Be upfront that it's AI. There's no need to dance round it
Customers don't seem to mind talking to an AI. What they mind is finding out later that they didn't know. So just say it, something like "you're chatting with our AI Assistant" at the top of the chat. Takes two seconds, and people trust it more for knowing.
It also makes the next point a lot easier to manage.
4. Always have a clear handoff to a human
No matter how good the AI is, some conversations need a person — a complex complaint, a sensitive query, or simply a customer who prefers to talk to someone.
So give people an obvious way out. A handover to live chat, a number, a callback request, whatever suits. As long as it's easy to find. An AI assistant with nowhere for the conversation to go isn't really finished.
5. Think beyond text, AI Voice is catching up fast
Website chat isn't the only front door anymore. AI Voice Assistants are increasingly used for handling inbound calls, booking enquiries, and out-of-hours support — doing for the phone what chatbots do for the web.
If your business gets a meaningful call volume, it's worth thinking about how a voice assistant could complement your chatbot, particularly for busy periods, out-of-hours cover, or simple, repetitive queries that tie up your team's time.
A few things to check before you go live
- Does it load after the page, or before it?
- Is it clearly labelled as AI, somewhere obvious?
- Can someone get to a human without much hassle?
- Does it read like a person, or like a menu with extra steps?
- Have you tried breaking it with non-scripted, real questions yet?
Getting the basics right pays off
None of this needs to be complicated. A chatbot or voice assistant that loads fast, sounds natural, and knows when to bring in a human will consistently outperform one that's fast to set up but frustrating to use.
The businesses getting the most value from AI assistants right now are the ones treating them as a genuine extension of their customer service — not just a box-ticking exercise.
If your chatbot's feeling a bit stuck in its ways
If your current chatbot is scripted, rigid, or starting to feel like it's holding your website back, it might be time for an upgrade. Converse360 helps businesses move to generative AI chatbots and AI Voice Assistants that actually understand customers — without the technical headaches.
Get in touch with Converse360 today to talk about upgrading your chatbot to generative AI, adding an AI Voice Assistant, or both.
