Vent: That week I tried AI customer service bots was a total disaster

Last month I was working on a project for a local shop in Austin - they wanted to save money by using an AI chatbot for customer questions instead of hiring a real person. I set it up over a week, tested it, and it seemed fine. But once it went live it kept telling people we were closed on weekends when we were open, and gave out wrong prices. It got so bad the owner had me shut it down after 3 days. Has anyone else had a bot go completely off the rails like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

eric7232mo ago

Did you train it on the actual data the shop uses, or just feed it general info? Sounds like the bot was pulling from a bad source or your training set had old hours and prices mixed in. I've seen this happen when people rely on pre-built models without customizing the knowledge base to the specific business. Bots are only as good as the data you give them, so if the training was rushed the mistakes are on the setup, not the tech itself.

nancyw972mo ago

Yeah, I read somewhere even little data gaps can make bots go haywire.

diana201mo ago

Honestly, is it really that big of a deal if a bot gets a price wrong once? People act like it's the end of the world, but customers can just call the shop to check.