That AI customer service chatbot I built was ticking people off more than helping

I put together this chatbot for my concrete company's website last month. Thought it'd be great for handling after hours questions about quotes and scheduling. First week went okay. Then I started getting voicemails from customers saying the bot told them we don't do stamped concrete (we do) and quoted someone $12,000 for a small patio that should've been around $3,000. My wife screenshotted the chat log and showed me where it was basically making up numbers based on some random Reddit thread it pulled from. Had to rip the whole thing down and start over with way tighter guardrails. Has anyone else had an AI tool backfire this bad on a small business site?

2 comments

2 Comments

mark_price17d ago

The key for us was feeding the bot a very short script of exactly what it could say. We put in our specific services and price ranges, then told it to only pull from that file. No internet searches allowed at all.

susan13017d agoMost Upvoted

Doesn't that script get stale real fast when someone asks something just outside it?