Website chat: step by step on a broad question

On a broad question like “I’m looking for an oven” the chat can do one of two things: one long answer with a row of products, or first ask what the visitor is after. When your shop has many of them, it does the second: a short answer, at most three questions answered with a tap, then the best three.

When

• The visitor names a kind of product and nothing else: no brand, no colour or size, no budget, no other words. The kind of product is a category of your catalogue.
• Your search counts more than 20 products in that category.
• Site search is on: every question is a filter of your search, and the number the chat names is the number your search counts.

A specific question (“the black one in 60 cm”, a brand, “under 500”) gets products straight away, as always. It works in Basic, Hybrid and AI, without an AI call.

Switch it off under Chat → Settings → Behaviour → Step by step.

What the visitor sees

1. A short answer of at most two sentences: “Nice! We have 187 of them. With three short questions I’ll pick the best three for you.”
2. One question at a time, with Question 1 of 3 and three bars above it. Each answer is one tap:
   • pictures, three across, when the answers look different (a style, a shape, a colour). For each answer the chat shows the photo of the best-selling product with that value, with e.g. [product name] under it. Nothing is drawn: no photos, or photos that look alike, and they become buttons;
   • buttons for a size, a budget and other features without a visible difference, with Not sure yet or Doesn’t matter.
3. The answer appears as the visitor’s message, the chat “types” for a moment, then the next question comes.
4. Under the question is Skip, just show me: it skips the rest and shows three products on what is known.
5. After the first answer a bar with the choices appears under the tabs: a pill per choice with a cross, and N match on the right. Tap a pill and the chat goes back to that question; the answers after it are dropped.

Which questions

You write nothing per category. The chat picks the filters that split the products in that category best: a choice filter whose three most common values share the products fairly evenly, a number (a width, say) in three ranges, and the price as a budget. At most three: what it looks like first, then the size, the budget last. A filter nearly every product shares is never asked.

The words come from the filter itself: the label your visitors see and the values in the store view’s language. The budget becomes Up to € X, Up to € Y and Doesn’t matter, with amounts taken from the prices in that category.

The result

One sentence, then at most three products side by side to swipe through. Each card shows the photo, the name, the price and one line on why it fits (at most two reasons, like Modern · Within your budget). The product that fits every answer exactly gets Best match.

• The budget is a hard ceiling: the chat never shows anything above the chosen budget.
• When fewer than three fit exactly, it fills up: first with another size, only then with another style. Such a card says so: A little smaller than you chose, A little larger than you chose or Different [filter].
• The sentence follows: “These three match … exactly.”, “One matches exactly, the other two come close.” or “Nothing matches exactly, but these three come closest.”

Below the cards:

• Compare these three — asks the chat to put the three side by side;
• Different [filter] — the same choices, with the other values of the first choice filter;
• View all N in search — opens your search with exactly the chosen filters.

Typing in between

The visitor can type a question at any moment. It goes to the chat as always, with the choices so far: “do you have dimmable ones?” is then about the chosen products.

Measuring

The chat’s Overview shows a Step by step block once it is used: started, questions answered (with how often a visitor skipped), results shown and product opened. Under Signals they are chat.guided, chat.guided.question, chat.guided.answer, chat.guided.skip, chat.guided.result and chat.guided.click. They are counts per category, filter or SKU — never who.