How to choose an AI chatbot for customer support: a checklist
By the Paperlink AI team · Published
Short answer
Ask every vendor the same questions and test with your own documents. The questions that matter most: does it answer only from your content, what does it do when it does not know, can you see the source of each answer, how does it stay current, and what does an unanswered question cost you?
Every AI chatbot demo looks good. The demo uses the vendor's own content and questions that the bot was built to answer. What matters is how the bot behaves with your documents, your customers' questions, and the questions your documents can't answer. Use these twelve questions with every vendor you consider, and keep the answers side by side.
Accuracy and trust
- Does it answer only from our content? A support bot that mixes in general knowledge will state policies you don't have.
- What does it do when it doesn't know? Look for a clear refusal and a path to a human, not a guess.
- Can our team see the source of every answer? Without sources you can't tell a misread page from a wrong page.
- What happens when two of our documents disagree? Ask how you mark the current version.
Content and freshness
- Which content can it read? Check your real sources: help center, PDFs, spreadsheets, policies.
- How does it stay current when our site changes? A bot that read your site once drifts from it. Ask how often it checks again, and whether you can trigger an update.
- Does it show us what it could not answer? The questions a bot refuses are the most useful list of missing content you will get.
Privacy and security
- Is our content used to train AI models? Get the answer in writing, for the vendor and for the AI providers it uses.
- Is our data kept separate from other customers? Ask how, not only whether.
Cost and limits
- What does an unanswered question cost us? Some pricing models charge for every message, including refusals.
- What happens when we reach our limit? A bot that goes silent mid-month is a support problem of its own.
- What does setup take? Count the developer time, not only the subscription.
How Paperlink AI answers these questions
We built Paperlink AI around this list, so here are our own answers. Ask every other vendor for theirs and compare.
| Question | Paperlink AI |
|---|---|
| 1. Only our content? | Yes. It answers only from the documents you upload and the website pages you import. |
| 2. When it doesn't know? | It says so and shows your contact details instead of guessing. |
| 3. Sources? | Your team sees the document and page behind every answer in the dashboard. Visitors see the answer only. |
| 4. Conflicting documents? | Mark the newer uploaded document as superseding the older one. With a future effective date, it takes over on that date. |
| 5. Which content? | Public websites, plus uploads in PDF, DOCX, XLSX, HTML, CSV, TXT and Markdown. |
| 6. Staying current? | Imported websites update weekly on Starter, daily on Growth and up, and you can select Update now at any time within your plan's daily limit. |
| 7. Gaps? | The Unanswered report collects the questions it could not answer. Starter shows the count and the top 3; Growth and up show the full report. |
| 8. Training? | No. Paperlink AI and its AI providers never train on your content. |
| 9. Separation? | Each workspace keeps its documents and chats isolated from every other workspace. |
| 10. Cost of a refusal? | Replies the bot can't answer are free. |
| 11. At the limit? | At your limit the widget shows your contact card instead of going silent. |
| 12. Setup? | Import your site or upload documents, then paste one script tag on your website. |
How to run a fair trial
Answers to a checklist are a start. The real test is your own content. Load the same documents into each tool you shortlist, then ask the same set of questions, including questions your documents do not answer. Our guide on how to stop an AI chatbot from making up answers describes a 30-question test you can reuse.
Paperlink AI starts with a 7-day trial, card required, cancel anytime. See pricing for the plans.
Try it on your own help center
Paste your help center URL or upload your documents, then ask the questions your visitors ask. 7-day trial, card required, cancel anytime.