How chatbots work
A chatbot answers visitors on your website from what you taught it, and helps them take the next step.
A chatbot is the assistant on your website. It answers only from its knowledge and your description of the business. When a visitor needs more, it collects their details, offers a meeting time or hands the conversation to a person on your team. Chatbots come with the AI sales chatbot in Marketplace.
An agent such as Leo can give a chatbot its face and way of working. Without one, the chatbot is a general assistant that follows your settings only.
Create a chatbot
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Chatbots → New chatbot: name, agent and website.
Go to Chatbots → New chatbot and give it a name (e.g. Emma), an agent if you have one, and a reply language.
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While it learns, a chatbot stays a draft: visitors don't see it yet, but you can try it as soon as the learning is done.
Reply language
| Setting | What happens |
|---|---|
| From knowledge (automatic) | Answers in the language its knowledge is in, detected automatically. Until it has knowledge, the visitor's language. |
| Visitor's language | Answers in the language the visitor writes in; your primary language when unsure. |
| Always one | Every answer, greeting and message is in one language, whatever the visitor writes. |
Turn on Also answer visitors in their own language to keep a primary language and still answer anyone in theirs.
The chatbot's sections
| Section | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Overview | How it worked over a period: outcomes, topics, unanswered questions, latest conversations. |
| Conversations | Every conversation, and the ones that need a person. See Conversations. |
| Leads | People who left their details. See Leads. |
| Knowledge | What it knows and how fresh it is, plus help articles. See Knowledge. |
| Behaviour | Who it is, how it talks, what it never does, enquiries and handoff. See Behaviour. |
| Tools | What it can do besides answering. See Tools. |
| Appearance | Colours, avatar, button, welcome screen. See Appearance. |
| Domains and installation | Where it may answer and the code for your site. See Domains and installation. |
| Security | Security mode, visitor identity, data retention, memory. See Security and privacy. |
| Testing | Playground, saved test cases and versions. See Testing. |
| Deploy | Development and Production, publishing and rollback. See Deploy and versions. |
Status
The chip next to Deploy tells you where the chatbot stands:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Live | Published and seen working on your website. |
| Awaiting installation | Published, but the widget hasn't been seen on your website yet. |
| Inactive | It was installed, but hasn't been seen for a while. |
| Not deployed | Never published to Production. |
| Paused | Switched off: the widget no longer shows. Knowledge, settings and conversations stay. |
Settings, moving and deleting
In the chatbot's settings you switch it on or off, see its conversations this month, move it to another workspace you manage, or delete it. Deleting removes its sources, articles, settings and conversation history for good; its websites stay, without a chatbot.