Who needs a chatbot?

I forgot why I was doing this in the first place. To show off my SKILLZ! I was asked if I knew anything about chatbots, and I said yes! I have a great demo you can talk to about a pizza place. It’s cool. Also, have you seen Elevenlabs.io? It’s incredible! Why do you ask? You want to build a chatbot too? It’s easy! Just remember to make sure it does NOT destroy everything.

HOW DOES IT KNOW?

First you need guardrails. I suggest these three tenets guide the way: - Limit the information available to the robot - Require READ_ONLY access - NO CUSTOMER DATA Here’s what I did: The bot has access to PlantSpinner website content only. That’s it. It can’t access the internet and it can’t tell you about dinner. The bot can answer questions about Plant Spinner and suggest Plant Spinner products. It can read the blog and the FAQ and send you there, or to the store, or the contact form. The bot must say “I’m not sure” and point people to the contact form for all other questions. The bot must look like it belongs on the website. Same styling, same colors, looking fun. Oh, and work on mobile of course.

WHAT CAN'T IT DO?

The bot can never make up prices, specifications, or policies. The bot can’t wax poetically. "Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?" The bot can’t link to an outside website. Don’t be gross.

HOW DO WE PREVENT TERMINATOR?

To be safe, put a cap on it. I limited the amount of text a person can enter, as well as the amount of information my bot can remember. I also limit the number of times any single person (or most likely another bot) can ask it a question. I limit the output of the bot in general, so it can’t do something wrong. Like send you a bad link or the wrong details about a product. And remember, the first thing I do is limit access to information. I said this at the top, and it’s worth repeating. If you don’t give bots information you want to keep a secret, they can’t ever reveal those secrets. So, for example, the new and exciting Plant Spinner chatbot does not have access to customer information, order history, or credit card details.

SPEAKING OF SECURITY

Going further, the website itself has a very loose connection with customers. When someone places an order, Stripe collects the address and payment info. Those details are never shared back with the website. The only information the website gets is whether or not the checkout completed, so that the cart can reset (and the analytics machine can give me a star). Customer details are contained within Stripe, a very reputable company. Neither my website, nor the chatbot, knows who bought what, when, or why. The How was Stripe :)

A FINAL WORD

One last caveat for the bot: Anything off topic or unknown is dismissed, you can be mean to me, but not my robot.