Answering every question is the hardest part of booking clients through Instagram. There can be a huge range of conversation paths, just as in any business. The AI receptionist's job is to keep the client engaged throughout that conversation
Your client is a real person, your conversation partner. They can tell whether they are talking to AI. So when the conversation is complex, I recommend being open about the fact that AI is answering. In my view, that builds more trust than a chatbot pretending to be a real person
What goes to the model, and what goes to code
You can give the model the varied conversational work. People ask questions in their own words, clarify details and return to something discussed earlier. The model can handle this changing flow without reducing the entire exchange to a rigid set of lines
But the same conversation contains things that need strict checking: prices from your price list, dates from your calendar and appointment times. I recommend building those parts in Python and making code a participant in the conversation
The model keeps talking to the client while code checks prices and availability against the price list and calendar, rather than leaving the model to recall them. Each has a specific job: the model phrases the response, and code checks the actual booking details
Rules for the conversation
Having many possible conversation paths does not mean giving the model permission to say anything. Set boundaries in advance. Whatever the client asks, the reply should stay within the rules you defined before launching the chatbot
I recommend adding a second model to check the replies. It compares the first model's answers with those rules. One model handles the conversation; the other checks whether the prepared response follows the restrictions you set
Checking a reply and checking calendar availability are different tasks. The reviewing model checks the conversation rules, while code handles exact data. That way, the model that wrote an answer is not the only component responsible for reviewing it
A Direct booking involves both a conversation and specific appointment details. With an AI receptionist, define where the model talks, where code checks the data and which rules are used to review the reply to the client