Most questions from a website’s visitors repeat themselves. How much does it cost. Is anything available. How do I get there. Are you open on Saturday. The answers are usually already on the site, but on the fourth page or in a PDF nobody opens. A website chat bot exists to give that answer in seconds, at the moment the person asks.
Under the label “chat bot”, however, the market sells three very different things at very different prices. We build chat agents for hotels and other businesses and hear the same questions from our clients. Here we have collected the answers: which types exist, what each costs, what to check before you pay, and how to tell whether the bot actually works.
The three types of website chat bot
1. Scripted chat bot with buttons
It follows a predefined flow. The visitor picks a button and the bot shows the next one. It is cheap and completely predictable. It does not understand free text and gets lost at the first question that is not in the flow. It suits simple tasks: pointing to a form, opening hours, contacts.
2. AI chat bot with a knowledge base
It understands freely written questions and answers from the information you have given it: website pages, price lists, terms, documents. Set up well, it gives your prices and terms rather than generalities, and admits when it does not know something.
Its weak spot is that it only talks. It cannot check availability, book an appointment or create an order.
3. AI agent with integrations
The third type is connected to your systems and takes action: checks availability and prices, creates a booking, books an appointment, creates an enquiry in the CRM, sends a confirmation. In the hotels we work with, the agent takes the conversation all the way to a completed booking, and the guest gets a confirmation straight away by email, WhatsApp or Viber.
Here are the differences in brief:
| Type | What it can do | Limitation | Suitable for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scripted chat bot | Guides the visitor through buttons | Does not understand free text | Simple questions and routing |
| AI chat bot with a knowledge base | Answers freely from your materials | Does not take actions | Information, terms, prices |
| AI agent with integrations | Answers and acts in your systems | Needs integration and more setup | Bookings, appointments, sales |
We have written in more detail about the difference between a chat bot and an agent in AI agents vs chat bots.
What to check before choosing a website chat bot
A vendor’s demo always looks good. So test with your own questions, not theirs.
- How it writes in Bulgarian. Ask with typos and in Latin script, for example “imate li svobodni stai za petak”. That is exactly how your customers write.
- Where it answers from. A good AI chat bot answers only from your materials and admits when it does not know. Ask something that is not on the site and see what happens.
- How a conversation reaches a person. Who gets the conversation, when, and what the staff member sees.
- Where the data is. Where conversations are stored, who has access to them and whether they are used to train models. This is a GDPR question, not a matter of convenience.
- What it can do. Whether it only talks or can check availability, book an appointment and create an enquiry in your system.
- What reports it gives. It helps to see at a glance what people ask and how each conversation ends, without reading them line by line. Our platform has a dashboard like that.
- Who maintains the knowledge base. Prices and terms change. Someone has to update them, and you should know who.
How much a website chat bot costs
The price is made up of three parts: build, monthly support and AI usage.
Chatbot builders. Ready-made platforms with scripts and simple AI are paid for with a monthly subscription. They look cheap, but setting up and maintaining the content stays with you.
Custom AI chat agent. There is a one-off implementation and monthly support. With us, implementation starts from €1,000 excluding VAT, and support from €100 per month per agent. The more integrations, the more implementation work, but also the more tasks the bot takes over.
Usage. The language model is paid for according to conversation volume, per million tokens (a token is a piece of a word). For a small site the amount is small; with thousands of conversations a month it is worth keeping an eye on.
How do you judge whether it is worth it? Count the enquiries that come in outside working hours and see how many of them get an answer in time. There is more on pricing in the article how much an AI agent costs in Bulgaria and on the AI chat agent.
How to tell whether the chat bot works
The number of conversations is the least interesting figure. Look at these:
How many conversations end without a person. If nearly all of them reach a staff member, the bot does not know enough.
How many enquiries become a booking, an order or an appointment. Whether the bot pays for itself depends on this number.
How often information is missing. In our dashboard these cases are visible straight away. Every such case is a question your website does not answer either.
When people write. The share of conversations in the evening and at weekends shows how many customers would otherwise wait until morning.
Website chat bot by industry: what customers ask
Hotels and guest houses. Available rooms, prices for specific dates, parking, pets, breakfast. This is where the third type pays off most, because the question almost always ends in a booking.
Clinics, salons and repair shops. Free slots, service prices, preparation before a procedure. An agent connected to the calendar books the slot and sends a reminder.
Online shops. Availability, sizes, delivery, returns, order status. The bot answers questions about both the general terms and the customer’s specific order.
B2B services. What the service includes, timelines, how to get a quote. The bot asks the clarifying questions and hands the salesperson a ready enquiry.
Where and how to place the chat bot on your site
The chat button sits in the bottom right corner, where people already look for it. The first message should say what the bot can do, for example “I can check available rooms and prices for your dates”. The generic “Hello, how can I help?” leaves the person guessing.
Pay attention to speed as well. The chat script should not slow down page loading, so it is best loaded after the main content. A slower site can cost you rankings in Google.
On a phone, the chat should not cover the call and booking buttons. And put a link to the chat where people hesitate: next to the prices, in the booking form, on the contact page.
Common website chat bot mistakes
A bot without a knowledge base. It answers in generalities, sounds confident and gets your prices wrong.
No route to a person. The angriest customer is the one who cannot reach a staff member.
An aggressive pop-up. A chat that covers the page in the very first second drives people away instead of helping them.
Outdated information. The bot quotes the old prices because nobody updated the knowledge base after the change.
Nobody reads the conversations. Yet they are the cheapest customer research you will ever have. They spell out what people cannot find on your website.
How implementation works with us
Conversation. We start with a free consultation: what your customers ask and which process makes sense for the bot to take over.
Knowledge base. We prepare the bot to know your business: the services, prices and terms customers ask about most.
Integrations. If the bot needs to take action, we connect it to the systems you already use.
Testing. Before launch we test it together with you, using the questions your customers actually ask.
Launch and monitoring. The reports show what people ask and where the bot needs more information.
The same agent can also answer in messaging apps. We describe how that works in the article on Viber and WhatsApp chat bots for business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a chat bot and an AI agent?
How much does a website chat bot cost?
Can an AI chat bot give a wrong answer?
Does it understand Bulgarian written in Latin script?
Do I need a programmer to maintain it?
Can the same bot work in Viber and WhatsApp?
If you want to see what a chat bot would look like on your website, book a free consultation. We will test it together with the questions your customers actually ask.
Digital Agent (AI AVTOMATIZATSII OOD) is a specialist agency for AI automation, AI agents and integrations. We build practical, durable solutions for hotels, restaurants, online shops and B2B companies in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania.
