What Is an AI Chatbot?

A chat window on your website answering visitors' questions with an AI model, usually with the goal of capturing a name and number.

Also called website chat, web chat widget, chat widget

Updated September 1, 20262 min read

Key takeaways

Its real job is to turn an anonymous visitor into a name and a number. Judge it on that, not on conversation quality.
It is only as accurate as what you give it. A bot answering questions about your services from general knowledge will make things up.
Anything it says about price, timing or what you will do is a claim your business is making.
It competes with a phone number and a text link, both of which are simpler and frequently convert better for the trades.
Most contractor websites have too little traffic for it to matter. Fix the profile first.

An AI chatbot is the chat bubble in the corner of a website, with a language model behind it instead of a script. For a contractor it is a lead-capture tool wearing a customer-service costume, and it is worth evaluating as the former.

Be honest about the traffic

Most residential contractors get a modest number of website visitors a month, and a large share of the inquiries arrive by phone or through the Google Business Profile rather than the site. A chat widget converts a percentage of visitors; a percentage of a small number is a small number. This is one of the last things to buy, not one of the first.

If your traffic does justify it, the useful configuration is narrow: answer the few questions people actually ask — do you serve my town, do you do this type of work, how soon can somebody look — and then get a name and a number into your system.

What it must not do

Quote. Commit to a timeline. Describe what is included. Anything a chatbot says about price or scope is a representation your business made, and the FTC’s advertising guidance applies to it in the same way it applies to a page on your site. A bot with a price list and no human in the loop is a way to become contractually interesting.

It also must not be given general knowledge and left to answer. Feed it your service area, your trades and your policies, and have it say “I will get somebody to call you” for everything else.

The simpler alternatives

A prominent phone number, a text link, and missed-call text-back cover most of what a chat widget is bought for, at a fraction of the complexity. For a trades audience holding a phone, tapping to call is a shorter path than typing into a box.

The bottom line

Buy this after your profile, your response time and your text handling are sorted, not before. And whatever you deploy, make sure it captures a number and never quotes a price.

References

1. Advertising and marketing guidance — Federal Trade Commission
2. Google Business Profile — Google