FAQs
HERE ARE a few OF THE QUESTIONS WE GET THE MOST.
What is CauseBot? What does it do?
CauseBot is a chatbot that is custom-tailored to help your organization serve others more efficiently. CauseBot uses conversational AI, natural language processing, and machine learning technology from Google to assist your website visitors. CauseBot can respond to frequently-asked questions and link your website visitors to resources.
What organizations can benefit from CauseBot?
Any organization that provides services to the public and has a website with information about those services could benefit from CauseBot!
CauseBot is highly effective at assisting visitors of information-rich websites. If your website has a “library” of information for the benefit of the public, indexes of legal forms, or an array of instructional videos, CauseBot links your website visitors to resources most relevant to the questions they are asking.
How much is CauseBot?
Every CauseBot is unique, and pricing for development will vary. Typically, CauseBot projects range from $6,000-$8,000. This is a one-time fee. CMC does not charge any mandatory recurring fees once the bot has been developed.
The projects that are in the higher range ($20,000-$60,000) are usually undertaken on behalf of our legal service provider customers and are complex projects involving use of the bot to identify and triage very specific issues and to incorporate legal forms automated document assembly.
We offer optional annual support and management contracts at $500/yr. The support contract includes four quarterly meetings where you will meet virtually with one of our analysts to review CauseBot’s performance and identify issues that need to be addressed. Of course, you can also reach out to us any time between meetings.
The only other costs associated with CauseBot would be costs for third-party integrations (e.g., Kommunicate.io for hand-off to live chat), and Google Dialogflow costs if your bot’s specific features or usage level bump it out of Dialogflow’s free pricing tier (180 text requests per minute.) If in the unlikely scenario an organization goes beyond 180 text request per minute, the cost is $.002 per request. The overwhelming majority of CauseBots will not incur any Dialogflow fees.
How is CauseBot different from other chatbot products on the market?
Many chatbot systems are not truly “conversational.” Users are offered a chat window where they can click buttons with pre-determined inputs. These menu/button-based chatbots do not allow a user to type a free response. The user’s choices are limited, and their experience feels pre-determined. CauseBot uses the power of conversational AI to allow the user to describe what they are looking for in their own words.
CauseBot also differs from other chatbot products on the market in our philosophy of openness and transparency. Other systems are marketed as highly proprietary, making use of some AI “secret sauce” when in reality most chatbots on the market are powered by either Google Dialogflow, Amazon Lex, Microsoft Luis or IBM Watson, or they are not actually powered by AI at all. In contrast, we are completely transparent about CauseBot being powered by Google DialogFlow.
Finally, another question to ask when comparing CauseBot to competitors is who is actually building and maintaining the bot? Some customers of our competitors are surprised when they realize that they are only actually paying for access to an expensive, proprietary platform where they are expected to build and maintain the bot themselves. By contrast, when you engage with us, we are doing all the work of developing the bot for you, per your directions and instructions about bot behavior as part of a collaborative process
We have a search bar on our website. Does CauseBot do the same thing as a search?
No. While CauseBot, website search, and your site’s menu system have the potential to help people find information on your website, that is where the similarity ends.
Website search involves only one input step, and then users are presented with potentially a long-list of possibly-relevant results based on unsophisticated keyword matching. By contrast, CauseBot makes use of a conversational, multi-step input processes to identify and confirm what the user is looking for when there is potential for ambiguity, and then presenting only relevant, curated resources or information.
Website search systems often falter and fail when dealing with misspellings (which we train CauseBot to deal with), or with keying in on the most conceptually important part of a search phrase rather than words that just happen to appear in it. CauseBot can take a question like “I have a question about a will” and identify that the user needs help with a probate law issue, whereas website search is more likely to key in on the word “question” as the longest and most unique keyword.
Often times users don’t know what to search for. Search engines can be powerful and work well for the types of users already know what keywords to search for. But a chatbot can work well for any type of user because they are conversational. A domestic violence victim may not know to search for “protection order” on a website to find relevant resources, and a search engine is less likely to return helpful results when the victim describes their experiences in their own words. CauseBot engages and assists users in way that ordinary search does not.
What’s the difference between live chat and a chatbot?
Simply put, livechat systems have human beings behind them, and chatbots do not. With a pure livechat system, you will need to have staff available to monitor questions that come in from website visitors, and type responses to them in real time. It can obviously be very challenging for staff to respond in a timely manner to livechat conversations, unless their job role is 100% dedicated to the livechat system and do not have other responsibilities.
With a chatbot, artificial intelligence software fulfils this role that would otherwise be fulfilled by humans in a livechat system. The chatbot responds instantly, 24 hours a day.
There are also hybrid systems. Some systems that are primarily marketed as livechat systems can be set up to force users down a non-conversational path with button inputs before they are connected to a human agent.
We also have hybrid options available with CauseBot, through a third-party integration option called Kommunicate which allows for handoff to human agents or for a human to jump into the conversation and take over.
Are there options to integrate CauseBot in places other than our website?
Yes! CauseBot is built on Google Dialogflow, and Dialogflow supports integration with a wide range of systems, including Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, and even text messaging and voice assistant telephone options. The most natural integration for CauseBot is the Facebook Messenger integration, because it allows organizations which have a Facebook page to promptly answer basic questions while linking users with more complex questions to pages on your website where relevant information is available. We would love to have a conversation with you about ideas you have for other integration options.
Can we name our bot?
Definitely. This is one of the fun parts of working with us to build your bot. You can give your assistant a fun name, and we will help you select a cool avatar image to match your bot’s name and personality.