AI automation · Practical setup
An AI chatbot that answers missed enquiries at 2am — and books the follow-up
Most small businesses lose leads after hours: the message sits until morning, the customer has moved on. This is the exact workflow we ship — trigger, qualify, answer, escalate, follow up — with the guardrail prompt that keeps it honest.
The problem in one number
If you reply in under 5 minutes you are ~8× more likely to reach the lead than after an hour — yet most small teams sleep, work jobsites, or sit in meetings. The bot exists for one job: no enquiry waits more than 60 seconds for a useful first answer, day or night.
The workflow (5 steps, no magic)
- Trigger. New message arrives on the site widget (or linked inbox) outside human hours — or anytime, as a first responder.
- Qualify. Bot asks three things max: what they need, when they need it, how to reach them (name + phone).
- Answer. Bot answers only from your approved knowledge: services, prices, areas, hours, timelines.
- Escalate. Anything unanswerable → bot says so plainly, saves the transcript, and pings you on Telegram/LinkedIn with the contact attached.
- Follow up. Next morning the human replies once — warm, with context — instead of discovering a cold lead.
The decision tree
| Visitor says | Bot does |
|---|---|
| Price / timeline / service question covered by FAQ | Answers + asks for phone to confirm details |
| Custom request, complaint, or anything not in FAQ | Says "let me get the owner", captures contact, escalates with transcript |
| Gives contact | Confirms, promises human follow-up window, ends politely |
| Spam / abuse | Polite close, no escalation, logged |
The guardrail prompt (the part that matters)
A chatbot without grounding invents prices. Ours is fenced in. Adapt this verbatim:
You are the after-hours assistant for {BUSINESS}.
Answer ONLY from the KNOWLEDGE below. If the answer is not
in KNOWLEDGE, say: "I don't want to guess — I've saved this
for the owner, who replies {HOURS}. What's the best number
to reach you?" Then capture: name, phone, need, timeline.
Never invent prices, dates, or promises. Max 3 questions
before asking for contact. Be warm, brief, plain language.
KNOWLEDGE:
- Services + starting prices: {LIST}
- Areas served: {LIST}
- Hours / lead time: {LIST}
- Booking link or next step: {LINK}Routing: where conversations go
- On-site widget for capture (fast, no login, mobile-first).
- Owner ping on Telegram or LinkedIn with name, need, and transcript — one tap to reply.
- Morning queue: every escalated thread sits in one list, oldest first, with promised follow-up windows.
Measuring it (weekly, 10 minutes)
| Metric | Target |
|---|---|
| First-response time (bot) | Under 60 seconds, 24/7 |
| Contact-capture rate | Over 50% of after-hours chats |
| Human follow-up time | Same morning / within promised window |
| Booked calls from bot threads | Trending up vs pre-bot baseline |
Rollout checklist
- Write the one-page KNOWLEDGE file (services, prices, areas, hours) — the bot is only as good as this.
- Set the escalation path and test it at midnight, on a phone, on 4G.
- Seed 20 test questions including traps ("give me 90% off", "are you human?") and confirm safe answers.
- Publish the morning routine: one owner, one list, same-day replies.
- Review transcripts weekly; promote repeated questions into KNOWLEDGE.
FAQ
Will it invent prices or promises?
No — it answers only from your approved KNOWLEDGE and escalates the rest with a transcript. The fence is the feature.
What does it cost to run?
Cents per conversation at small-business volume. The real cost is the one-time setup: knowledge file, guardrails, routing, testing.
How do I know it works?
Response time, capture rate and booked calls from after-hours threads, reviewed weekly against your pre-bot baseline.
Want the bot on your site?
Describe your business on LinkedIn — you get the workflow, knowledge file and routing set up, tested at midnight. No forms, no queue.