Live chat: the guide

• Small and medium businesses whose customers ask the same questions every day
• Trades, clinics, salons, shops and services with a website or a Facebook Page
• Owners who want enquiries answered after hours without hiring
• Teams who keep asking the owner the same questions about how things are done

Customers ask about prices, hours, bookings and policies at all hours, and every unanswered chat is a lead that goes somewhere else.

• Answers in seconds, day and night, from only what you've checked
• Says when it doesn't know, then passes the chat to a person or takes the customer's details, so it never makes things up and after-hours enquiries become leads
• Replies in the customer's language, and you read every chat in English
• Gets better every month: it reviews its own chats, ranks what to fix, and you approve each change
• Your team asks Staff chat instead of interrupting you, and every gap it finds becomes something it knows
• A fixed monthly price with a set number of chats, shown in dollars

Answers customers

On your website with a chat button, and anywhere else with a chat link and QR code. Facebook Messenger and Instagram are coming.

Hands over to a person

When a customer asks for a person, is unhappy, or asks something it can't answer. Your team gets an email and a suggested reply.

Takes details and arranges call backs

It asks for a name, email and phone, and records what the customer wanted.

Keeps to your rules

Words it must never say and rules in plain English are checked on every reply before it's sent.

Answers your team in Staff chat

Your staff ask about prices, how things are done, suppliers or policies, and get answers from everything the business has taught it, including what's kept for staff. Each answer says where it came from and whether it's been checked. Customers never see Staff chat.

Reviews and reports

Early each month it reviews last month's chats on its own, ranks the changes by how many chats they affect, and emails you; you can start a review any time. Reports show volumes, busy times, how chats ended and what people ask most.

1. 1

   It learns your business

   You add documents and your website. It reads them, writes short notes into your AI control centre for you to check, and suggests Content Sections to group them by. You can add, rename or remove sections, and each one says whether it is for customers, staff or both.

2. 2

   You talk to it to train it

   It asks about what's missing from each Content Section, in plain questions you can answer by typing or with your keyboard's microphone. It writes up each answer as notes, and you keep, change or drop each one.

3. 3

   You check its answers

   It suggests the 20 to 30 questions customers ask most, each with an answer and where it came from. Only answers marked ready reach customers.

4. 4

   It's tested, then published

   Every publish is tested against your checked answers and safety checks. A failed safety check stops the change going live.

5. 5

   Customers chat

   Each reply records the answer it used. Customers rate replies, and anyone can ask for a person at any time.

6. 6

   Your team steps in

   Chats that need a person come first in Conversations, with a suggested reply. Once someone replies, Live chat stays out of that chat.

7. 7

   Your team asks too

   In Staff chat, signed-in staff ask questions and get answers with their sources. If an answer is wrong they press This is wrong and say what's right; it waits in your AI control centre to check. Each Monday you get an email with how many questions it couldn't answer.

8. 8

   It improves

   From customers' thumbs and the questions it couldn't answer, the monthly review suggests changes, biggest first. You accept, edit or say no to each; accepted fixes become tests and are published as the next version. Then it goes round again.

1. 1

   Documents

   Add price lists, policies and opening hours, and read your website.

2. 2

   Questions

   Check the suggested questions and answers and mark each ready.

3. 3

   Actions

   Choose who it hands over to, and whether it takes details or arranges call backs.

4. 4

   Style

   Pick your brand colour, how it sounds, and your business hours.

5. 5

   Try it

   Ask it your own questions. Nothing is sent or booked.

6. 6

   Go live

   Publish, then add the chat button to your website or share the chat link.

Every Buildloop assistant works off your AI control centre, which holds your company details, knowledge and settings, trains each assistant and passes what one learns to the others. The more it knows about your business the more accurate every assistant is, and each one you add makes the others stronger.

Your AI control centre keeps what it knows about your business in Content Sections you can open, check and add to, with what's missing shown. Each says whether it's for customers, staff or both. You start with About the business, Products and services, Pricing, Payments, Opening hours, Contact details, Locations and service areas, Booking and ordering, Delivery and collection, Returns, refunds and warranty, Terms and policies, Common questions, Staff knowledge, Other, and can add, rename or remove them; the AI suggests sections from what it reads. How we talk, Rules and Suppliers are kept beside them.

Your website

Optional. The chat button, added with one line of code and checked for you.

Chat link and QR code

Optional. For emails, invoices, signs and your Google Business Profile.

Facebook Messenger and Instagram

Optional, coming. Answering your Page's messages; waits on Meta approving Buildloop's app.

Google Calendar

Optional, coming. Booking calls; each booking waits for your approval.

• A booking in your calendar waits for a person's approval until you let it book on its own
• Suggested replies to a handed-over chat are sent only when someone presses Send
• Changes from a review go live only when you accept them and publish

NZ$99 a month, including 150 chats a month, then NZ$0.50 for each chat after that. Cancel any time. Plus a one-off set-up and configuration fee, agreed after a short call about your business. Every account also has the AI control centre, NZ$49 a month, once for all its assistants.

• It answers customers only from checked answers and documents marked for customers
• Staff chat is for people signed in to your business; it answers only from what the business has taught it
• It doesn't take payments or make promises about price or dates beyond what you've written
• Replies in te reo Māori and Samoan wait until a speaker has checked them; for now it replies in English and says so
• WhatsApp and SMS are not built yet

• Your business's data is stored in Sydney, Australia
• Chats are read by the AI model to write replies, and are never used to train it
• Contact details it finds are held back until you allow each one
• The chat always says it's an AI assistant