Frequently asked questions

What the chatbot does

What is a chatbot for a website?

A chatbot for a website is a chat window in the corner of your site where visitors can ask their question in full sentences and get an answer straight away. Unlike a contact form, the visitor does not wait for a call back, but finds out what they wanted to know while they are still on your site.

The Veradicta chatbot answers solely from the knowledge your business has provided beforehand: prices, services, opening hours, how a job is carried out. It does not piece anything together from the internet.

How does the bot know what my business offers?

From the knowledge in the customer portal. That is where you set out, in plain English, what your visitors should know: what you offer, what it costs, when you can be reached, how a job is carried out. We get you started: when we set up your bot, we import your website for you, on every plan. The bot forms its answers from exactly this text.

You enter changes yourself in the portal. You can also re-import your website, PDFs and Word files there yourself, again on every plan.

Does the bot make up answers?

It is built not to. If it finds nothing in your knowledge for a question, it says so openly and refers the visitor to your business, instead of giving a plausible-sounding figure.

That is not a guarantee, and we do not claim it is. That is why there is a second safeguard: you can see in the portal what it answered. If something is wrong, you correct it there. The correction goes into its knowledge and applies to the answers that follow.

What happens if the bot cannot answer a question?

It tells the visitor and gives them the way to reach you. At the same time the question lands in your portal, in a list of unanswered questions.

You enter the answer once, and from then on it knows it. That is the real point of this list: it shows you in black and white what your customers want to know and cannot find on your website.

Can a member of staff take over the conversation?

Yes, in two ways. If a visitor asks for a person, is annoyed, or wants a binding commitment, the bot passes the conversation to you, tells the visitor it has done so, and files the case in your portal. That is included in every plan, even the smallest.

From the Medium plan, you can add the takeover: your member of staff writes to the visitor directly in the chat window while they are still there. From that moment the bot stays silent.

The takeover is only offered when someone is marked as available in the portal. The status holds as long as the portal is open; after an hour with no activity it asks, and anyone who does not reply is taken off again automatically. If nobody is at their desk, the visitor is not offered the takeover at all, and gets a call back as usual. A window in which someone waits for a person who never comes would be worse than a bot that honestly passes things on.

Can the bot arrange appointments?

It takes down a requested appointment and files it in your portal as an enquiry, together with the visitor's contact details. So when you call back, you already know what it is about and when the customer is free.

If you have your own booking page, it guides visitors there, and the customer books their appointment themselves.

Does the bot know my product range?

From the Medium plan, yes. You enter an address in the customer portal: your Google Shopping feed, the WooCommerce Store API or the product list of your Shopify shop. No password, no plugin. We fetch the items straight away and again every night after that.

The bot then recommends from your real items and shows up to three of them as a card, with picture, price, tax and delivery note, availability and a link to the product page. Prices only ever appear on the card, never in the running text, and the card is built by our server from your catalogue data, not by the chatbot.

If too many items fit equally well, it does not guess: it asks a short follow-up question about the feature that best separates the choices, such as material or size, and only recommends after that. You can try this without signing up on our sample website, the tool shop Werkhof (in German).

Does the bot also answer on WhatsApp?

From the Medium plan, yes. Anyone who messages your WhatsApp business number gets the same answers from the same bot as on your website, from the same knowledge. Contact details arrive in the portal as an enquiry, the conversation appears there like any other, and you still see everything in your WhatsApp app and can reply yourself at any time.

For this you need a business account verified by Meta, a number that is not yet active on WhatsApp, and a few values from your Meta account, which you enter in the portal. The instructions are in the portal's help section, step by step. Replies to messages from your customers cost nothing at Meta.

The bot does not message anyone of its own accord: no reminders and no advertising. That would cost money at Meta and would need approved templates.

Which languages does the chatbot answer in?

On the Small plan, in English and German. From the Medium plan, it answers in the visitor's own language. The chat window itself, meaning buttons and notices, you set from 20 languages: 5 of them on Medium, 10 on Big, all of them on Ultimate.

Your knowledge stays in one language. You do not maintain anything twice.

Can I read back what was discussed?

Yes. Every conversation appears in full in the customer portal, along with the enquiries with contact details and the questions the bot could not answer.

You can also see how many messages have added up in the current month.

What can the chatbot not do?

It does not write quotes, and it has no access to stock management or order systems. It only knows what you have provided.

It also does not replace a conversation that a person has to have. For anything that needs an assessment on site, the right answer is a call back, and that is exactly what it prepares.

Installation and technology

How does the chatbot get onto my website?

With one line of code in the source of your existing website. You add the line once, and from then on the chat window appears on every page of your website.

Everything else stays as it is: no rebuild, no move, no new site. If adding it does not work first time, we help online until the bot runs on your site.

Does it work with WordPress, Wix, Jimdo or Shopify?

Yes, anywhere you can add your own HTML code, and all the systems mentioned can do that. In WordPress it is usually a field in the theme or a small plugin for the header; Wix, Jimdo and Shopify each have their own setting for it.

There is no ready-made Veradicta plugin for WordPress. Nor is one needed, because the one line goes in the place provided for it in each of these systems.

Do I have to rebuild my website for it?

No. The bot sits on top of your existing site and changes nothing about it. Your content, your structure and your addresses stay untouched.

You can remove it just as easily, by deleting the line you added.

How long does setup take?

Adding the line itself takes minutes. We import your website for you when we set up your bot, and within an hour of your enquiry you have the line for your site by email. What takes time after that is reading it over: you check in the portal whether the knowledge is right, and add whatever is missing from your website.

That is why there is a free trial of 14 days. During that time the bot runs with your real content on your website, and you can see from real conversations whether it is any good.

Will it slow down my website?

The chat window is only loaded after your page has finished loading. So it does not queue in front of your content.

We have not yet measured this on a customer website, and so we do not give a figure. If you want one, we will measure it on your site during the trial.

What if I do not have a website yet?

Then a chatbot is the wrong first step. It needs a site to sit on, and without a website nobody will think of asking it anything.

We do not build websites. It is more honest to say so here than to sell you something that leads nowhere.

Pricing and contract

What does a chatbot for a website cost?

At Veradicta, €29 a month net on the Small plan with 250 messages a month, €69 on the Medium plan with 750 messages a month and €109 on the Big plan with 1,500 messages a month. The Ultimate plan is available on request, with the number of messages agreed with you.

All prices net. For businesses only. As a supplier based in Germany we do not charge VAT on services to UK businesses; you account for it yourself under the reverse charge.

There are also free do-it-yourself tools on the market. The difference is how much work stays with you: with us, setup is included on every plan.

What counts as a message?

Every answer your bot gives counts as one message. A visitor who asks five questions uses five messages. Replies your staff write themselves in live chat don't count.

Once your plan's allowance is used up, the bot refers visitors to your business instead of carrying on answering. Nothing is charged on top automatically.

What happens when the included messages are used up?

The bot politely signs off with the next visitor and refers them to your business. Nothing is charged on top automatically, and you will not get an invoice you were not expecting.

You can move up a plan at any time, and it applies immediately.

Is there a setup fee?

There is no setup fee.

You only pay the monthly amount for the plan you choose.

How long am I tied in?

If you pay monthly, not at all: the contract runs for an indefinite period; there is no minimum term. It can be cancelled by either side at any time, with effect from the end of the current billing month.

Can I try the chatbot for free?

Yes, for 14 days. With your own content, on your own website. No payment details, no automatic renewal. If you decide not to carry on, simply say nothing. You can request the trial at veradicta.com/en/free-trial; all we need is your company name and your website address.

There is also a bot on this website you can try out, with no sign-up and no email address. It is our own, and it answers from what we have told it about Veradicta: prices, process, technology. To see a bot in someone else's business, visit our sample website, the tool shop Werkhof (in German).

Are the prices net or gross?

All prices net. For businesses only. As a supplier based in Germany we do not charge VAT on services to UK businesses; you account for it yourself under the reverse charge.

The service is not intended for consumers, and we do not enter into contracts with them.

What is the difference between the plans?

We set up your bot for you on every plan, with your knowledge, colour, logo and greeting. The plans differ in what is included after that:

Small for €29 a month: For businesses that keep being asked the same questions. The bot answers in English and German.

Medium for €69 a month: For businesses with more knowledge, an online shop or customers in other languages. It answers in the visitor's language and on WhatsApp too, and five people can log in to the portal.

Big for €109 a month: For businesses that find 750 messages too tight, or whose customers speak many languages. 1,500 messages, and enquiries can be passed on to your own software.

Ultimate on request: For companies with heavy traffic and the volume of questions that comes with it. The number of messages is agreed with you, plus several addresses and a named contact.

Data protection

Is the chatbot GDPR compliant?

We built it with that in mind, and the individual points are set out verifiably in our privacy policy: storage on a server in Germany, no cookies in the chat window, no IP addresses with the conversations, deletion after 30 days at the latest, a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR.

There is, however, no such thing as ‘GDPR compliant’ as a seal, and anyone who sells it to you without explanation should make you suspicious. Whether your use is lawful also depends on what you state in your own privacy policy. We give you the wording for it. We are a provider based in Germany and write from the EU GDPR; for a business in the UK, the UK GDPR applies, which corresponds to it in its main principles.

Where is the data stored?

On a server in Germany. That is where your knowledge, the conversation histories and the enquiries collected are held.

To produce the answer itself, the question goes to Anthropic in the United States. The basis for this is the EU standard contractual clauses under Article 46 GDPR. This is also stated in our privacy policy.

Does the chat window set cookies?

No. The chat window sets no cookies, and no IP addresses are stored with the conversations.

So you do not need a cookie banner for the chatbot alone. Whether your website needs one for other reasons is not affected by this.

How long are conversations stored?

Conversations and contact details from the chat are deleted after 30 days at the latest, unless you agree a longer retention period with us.

After the contract ends, your knowledge and the conversation histories are likewise deleted after 30 days at the latest. Within that period you can ask for this data to be handed over in a common, machine-readable format.

In our backups, deleted data is still present for up to 22 days in normal operation. We do not remove individual data from them; we only use backups to restore an earlier state after an outage or an error. After that the data disappears with the backup it is in.

Do I get a data processing agreement?

Yes. It is concluded before processing begins and takes precedence over our terms and conditions. That is not a courtesy but an obligation under Article 28 GDPR, as soon as we process personal data on your behalf.

Does the visitor know they are writing to an AI?

Yes, it is shown visibly in the chat window. Article 50(1) of the EU AI Act requires it, and we think it is right regardless.

The bot also does not pretend to be a person if someone asks it directly.

Working together

Which businesses is a chatbot worth it for?

For businesses that regularly get the same questions through their website, and whose jobs are large enough that a missed enquiry hurts. Trades businesses, gyms, medical and therapy practices, car dealerships, property management companies and service providers whose services need explaining are all candidates.

Veradicta is a managed service at a fixed monthly price: setup, operation, data protection and a named contact are included. The bot runs almost fully automatically, around the clock, and gives the most to businesses with daily visitors on their website: it answers their questions instantly and files the enquiries worth your attention in the portal.

How quickly do you respond to an enquiry?

We reply to an enquiry sent through our website within 24 hours, in person and not automatically.

If a customer reports a fault, we fix it within 48 hours at the latest. That is also what the contract says.

Do I have to look after the bot myself?

Not constantly. We run the technology, help with adding it to your site and can be reached in person. What stays with you: keeping the knowledge up to date (we import the starting point from your website for you when we set it up), correcting wrong answers in the portal, and following up the enquiries it files in the portal for you.

And if you do check the portal regularly, it pays off: after two weeks, the list of open questions shows what is missing from your website.

Who is behind Veradicta?

Veradicta is a sole trader business from Germany. The owner, and the person responsible named in the legal notice, is Maximilian Bertsch.

We are new to the market, and we say so instead of inventing a company history. What you get instead: a bot with your real content to try out before you decide.

Related

• A chatbot for your websiteThe overview: what such a bot does and how to recognise a good one.
• How installation worksOne line of code, shown on video, for every common system.
• PricingThe four plans with everything included and the contract terms.
• GDPR and chatbotsServers in Germany, retention periods, data processing agreement.