Website chatbots sit on your website and handle customer conversations automatically. Instead of visitors filling out contact forms or searching through FAQs, they can just type their questions and get immediate answers. A visitor might ask "Do you ship to Canada?" and get a response in seconds, along with shipping costs and delivery times.
The technology works by training these systems on your company's specific information. A virtual assistant for website learns from your help docs, product pages, and support tickets. When someone asks a question, it searches through this knowledge base and puts together an answer using the same language processing that powers tools like ChatGPT. The better your source materials, the more accurate the responses.
These tools handle more than the simple "Press 1 for sales" approach of older systems. An AI chat assistant can follow the flow of a real conversation, remember what someone said earlier, and ask follow up questions. If a customer asks about pricing and then mentions they're a nonprofit, it can automatically apply the relevant discount information. When the conversation gets too complex, it passes everything to a human agent who sees the full chat history.
Businesses use these for several practical purposes. E-commerce sites let customers track orders and get product recommendations. SaaS companies use them to help new users get started with their software. Service businesses book appointments and qualify leads before they reach the sales team. A customer service bot might handle 80% of routine questions, freeing up staff for more complex issues. As these systems get better at understanding context and maintaining longer conversations, they're becoming the first point of contact for most website visitors.