An AI chatbot on your site: when it helps and when it annoys customers
When an AI assistant on your site is worth it, when it's wasted money, and how to build one that sells instead of getting in the way.
"Everyone's adding an AI chatbot, let's do it too." Sometimes that's right, often it isn't. Here are the criteria.
When an AI chatbot genuinely helps
- You get a lot of repetitive questions. Opening hours, delivery, stock, "is this suitable for X" — if support answers the same thing 30 times a day, the bot pays for itself.
- The catalog is large and people get lost. "I want a ceiling lamp under €100, warm light" — a well-tuned assistant guides faster than filters.
- You sell something that needs explaining. Services, configurations, B2B — the bot can qualify the customer before a human is involved.
- You get traffic outside working hours. At night the bot catches an inquiry that would otherwise be lost.
When it's wasted money
- A small site with 5 pages and a clear offer — just add a phone number and a form.
- You have no content for the bot to work from. AI with no knowledge base makes things up — confidently.
- Your customers want a person, not a machine (a lawyer, a doctor, an expensive project).
How to keep it from annoying people
The difference between a helpful and an infuriating bot comes down to a few things:
- Don't pop up immediately. Give the person 10–15 seconds to look around.
- Have an exit to a human. One click to a phone, an email, or "connect me to an agent". Without this the bot is a trap.
- Know its limits. "I'm not sure, let me connect you with a colleague" beats a made-up answer.
- Ground it in your data. Connected to the real catalog, prices and rules — not a generic ChatGPT that guesses.
- Don't pretend to be human. Say it's an assistant. People forgive a bot; they don't forgive a "fake employee".
What it costs
A simple widget with a ready-made service (Intercom, Crisp with AI, Tidio) — a monthly subscription from ~€20–100. A custom assistant connected to your catalog and logic via MCP or an API — a project of a few thousand, but it fits exactly.
Thinking about an AI assistant on your site or store? Describe the case — if a ready-made widget does the job, we'll tell you, instead of selling you a custom project.