AI agent, chatbot, or a receptionist?

The scripted chatbot

Buttons and canned answers. Does: points people to pages. Fails: the moment a question isn't on the list, which is most questions. Costs: little, and earns about the same. Right for a very small site with three questions.

The AI agent

Answers from your approved facts, in the customer's language, any hour, and acts: books into the real calendar, takes an order, qualifies the inquiry and hands it over with the whole conversation. Fails: when it is allowed to guess. Ours answers only from your facts, shows the source, and says so when the answer isn't there. Costs: two weeks to a first working version, then a monthly run that depends on channels and volume. Right for any business that gets the same forty questions a day or loses inquiries after hours.

The receptionist

Judgment, warmth, the ability to say "let me check" and mean it. Fails: at 11 pm, on Sunday, and on the fortieth repeat of the same question. Costs: a salary. Right for every business where a person matters at the moment of decision, which is most of them.

The combination

An agent that answers, books and qualifies at any hour, and a person who steps in the moment it matters. The agent does the repetition; the receptionist does the judgment. In practice the receptionist gets their afternoons back and the business stops losing the inquiries that arrived at night.

What to ask any vendor

Will it say something that isn't true? Can you show me where each answer came from? What happens when it doesn't know? Can my team change the facts without you? If the answers are vague, keep looking.