What to Put in Your Chatbot’s Knowledge Base: A Checklist

A good website chatbot answers from your information and nothing else. That is what keeps it from making up your prices or promising things you don't offer. It also means the chatbot is only as good as what you give it.

The good news: you don't need to write a manual. Most of what you need already exists on your website, in your price list, or in your front desk's head. Here is what to add first.

The checklist

The basics

1. Opening hours, including holidays and any days you open late or close early.
2. Location and how to get there: address, parking, public transport, which entrance.
3. How to contact a person: phone, email, and when someone actually answers.

What you sell

4. Each service or product, in a sentence or two: what it is and who it's for.
5. Prices, or price ranges if it depends. "From ₱1,500" is far better than nothing. If you really can't give a price, say what it depends on and how they can get a quote.
6. How long things take: appointment length, delivery time, turnaround.

The questions that block a sale

7. Payment: cards, cash, e-wallets, instalments, deposits.
8. Insurance or eligibility: which plans you accept, any age limits, who you can and can't help.
9. Booking and cancelling: how to book, the cancellation policy, what happens if they're late.
10. Before the first visit: what to bring, how to prepare, how early to arrive.

The ones people forget

11. What you don't do. "We don't offer braces for adults, but we do offer Invisalign" saves everyone time.
12. Your guarantees and refunds, written exactly as you'd want them quoted.

How to write it so the chatbot answers well

• Use question-and-answer pairs for the important things. "Do you take Delta Dental? Yes, we're in-network with Delta Dental PPO." A clear pair is the most reliable way to get an exact answer.
• One topic per answer. A short answer about parking works better than parking buried in paragraph six of your About page.
• Write the way you'd say it to a customer. Plain words, specific numbers.
• Keep it current. When a price changes, change it here too. An old price is worse than no price.

How to find what you missed

Whatever you add, customers will ask something you didn't think of. That's normal, and it's the most useful thing a chatbot gives you: a list of exactly what your customers want to know.

1. Check the questions your chatbot couldn't answer every week. Most chatbot tools keep this list.
2. Add an answer for the top few. Usually a handful of questions make up most of the gaps.
3. Test it. Ask the question yourself and check the answer.

Do this for a month and the gaps mostly disappear.

SikloAI makes this part easy. Import your website in one click, add Q&A answers, and see every question your chatbot couldn’t answer in one list. Tala, your AI account manager in the dashboard, can draft answers for those questions from your own website, and leaves anything she can’t find (like a price) blank for you to fill in. Start your free 14-day trial →