5 Questions Every Chatbot Must Answer About Your Business (and How to Set Them Up in 10 Minutes)

Most chatbot launches fail not because the AI is bad, but because the knowledge base is empty. There are exactly 5 questions every business visitor asks. Get these 5 right and your bot handles 80% of conversations correctly from day one.

If you install a chatbot on your business website and just turn it on, here's what happens. A visitor asks "how much for X?", the bot says "I don't have that information," the visitor leaves, and you wonder why your conversion rate didn't improve. The chatbot didn't fail. You did — and not because you're lazy, but because nobody told you the bot needs knowledge before it can be useful.

The good news: there are exactly 5 questions visitors actually ask, almost regardless of what business you're in. Answer these 5 in your knowledge base — properly, with real specifics — and your bot handles 80% of conversations correctly from the first day. Here's the list, what good answers look like, and exactly where each one goes in ObieChat's knowledge editor.

The 5 questions

After two decades working with small businesses across multiple industries, the patterns are remarkably consistent. The five questions every visitor asks (in some form):

1. "What do you actually do?" — your services
2. "How much does it cost?" — your pricing
3. "Where are you and when are you open?" — your contact/location info
4. "How are you different from the competition?" — your value proposition
5. "How do I reach a human?" — your handoff path

A salon visitor, a workshop visitor, a tuition centre visitor, a clinic visitor — they all ask these same five things in different words. If your chatbot handles these five, you've covered most of the actual conversation surface.

Now, the practical part. For each question: what good answers look like, what bad answers look like, and where to put them in ObieChat's knowledge editor.

1. "What do you actually do?"

This is the visitor's first question, often phrased as "what services do you offer?" or "do you do X?" or "I'm looking for someone to help me with Y, can you?"

Where it goes: Console → Knowledge → Services.

Add a separate entry for each major service. Don't blob everything into "general consultancy" — visitors want to know specifically whether you do their thing.

What good looks like

Name: Monthly IT Support
Tagline: A predictable monthly plan instead of surprise bills.
Summary: 5 hours of IT support every month — helpdesk for staff,
  proactive monitoring, server + network maintenance, business
  email management. Priority same-business-day response.
Included:
  - Helpdesk for everyday issues (laptops, printers, software)
  - Server + network monitoring + maintenance
  - Email setup, security, troubleshooting
  - Backups + basic cyber-security
  - Monthly check-in + simple report
Ideal for: Small businesses with 5-30 employees who want
  predictable IT costs instead of per-incident invoices.
FAQs:
  Q: What if I need more than 5 hours in a month?
  A: Extra time is billed in 15-minute blocks at the hourly
     rate (RM 120-150). No surprise.
  Q: Is on-site support included?
  A: Yes, for clients in KL & Selangor.

That's a complete service entry — the bot can quote the name, explain what's included, tell visitors who it's for, and answer the most common follow-up questions.

What bad looks like

Name: IT Support
Summary: We provide IT support to businesses.

The bot will struggle to answer any specific question because there's nothing specific in the entry. It'll say "let me get your WhatsApp and the owner will explain" — which captures a lead, but every time, even for visitors who just wanted a quick answer.

Tip — write 2-3 FAQs per service

This is the highest-leverage thing you'll do in the entire knowledge base. The bot quotes FAQ answers near-verbatim, so good FAQs = great-feeling bot replies. Aim for 2-3 FAQs per service entry. Common ones:

• "How much does X cost?"
• "How long does X take?"
• "What's included in X?"
• "Is X right for me?"

2. "How much does it cost?"

The single most important question after "what do you do" — and the one most chatbots fumble.

Where it goes: Console → Knowledge → Pricing tiers.

You have a real choice to make here, and there's no wrong answer:

Option A — Publish prices

Each tier with name, price, unit, what's included. The bot quotes them confidently. Best for businesses where pricing is reasonably standardised: subscription services, retail with fixed margins, products with menus.

Name: Foundation
Price: RM 480
Unit: per month
Tagline: Predictable monthly IT — no per-visit bills.
Features:
  - 5 hours of support every month
  - Proactive monitoring + maintenance
  - Priority same-business-day response
  - Email + account management
  - Monthly check-in + report

Option B — Don't publish prices (also fine)

Leave the Pricing section empty. The bot will honestly say "the owner quotes case-by-case based on your specific needs. Drop me your WhatsApp and they'll send a proper quote within an hour."

This is actually a good choice for businesses where pricing genuinely varies — bespoke services, project work, anything custom. The bot still captures the lead; you just don't pre-commit to a number.

What NOT to do

Don't write "contact us for pricing" as the price field. The bot will dutifully repeat that to every visitor, which is exactly the most-annoying answer. Either give a number, give a range, or leave it blank and let the bot handle the handoff cleanly.

The hybrid that works well

Many businesses do best with: publish entry-level pricing, leave bespoke pricing blank. E.g.:

• Foundation — RM 480/month — fixed
• Business Care — RM 600/month — fixed
• Complete IT Partner — Tailored quote — blank price field, the bot will offer to take their WhatsApp

This gives visitors the "starts at RM 480/month" anchor (which prevents the "is this affordable for me?" anxiety that kills conversion), while preserving flexibility for larger engagements.

3. "Where are you and when are you open?"

The boring practical info. Surprisingly often missed.

Where it goes: Console → Knowledge → Business profile.

Fill in:

• Address — the physical address visitors would see on Google Maps
• Phone — your business number (different from WhatsApp if needed)
• Email — the public business email
• Response promise — e.g. "We reply within 1 hour during business hours." The bot quotes this verbatim when asked "how quickly do you respond?"
• Map URL — optional Google Maps link the bot can hand out

For hours, add an FAQ entry under General FAQ:

Q: What are your business hours?
A: Monday to Saturday, 9 AM to 6 PM. WhatsApp messages are
   monitored after hours and replied to first thing the next
   business day. Closed on Sunday and public holidays.

For "where are you exactly" / "do you do home visits" / "do you serve [my area]" — another FAQ entry under each relevant service, OR a general FAQ:

Q: Do you serve Petaling Jaya / Subang / other areas?
A: Yes. We're based in Setapak, KL, and serve businesses
   across Kuala Lumpur and Selangor — including PJ, Subang
   Jaya, Damansara, Cheras, and Shah Alam. Remote support
   anywhere in Malaysia.

Specific named areas matter. Visitors search "[your industry] in [their specific neighbourhood]" — if your knowledge base mentions that neighbourhood, the bot can confidently say yes.

4. "How are you different from the competition?"

The implicit question behind half of "do you do X?" enquiries. Visitors comparing you to alternatives need a hook — something memorable that helps them choose.

Where it goes: Console → Knowledge → Business profile → Introduction.

The Introduction field is a single paragraph the bot uses as its mental model of your business. This is where your differentiator lives. Write it like you're explaining to a curious neighbour, not like a corporate "About Us" page.

What good looks like

ObieOnline is an outsourced IT consultancy based in Setapak,
Kuala Lumpur, providing enterprise-grade managed IT support,
infrastructure setup, web development and business
computerisation to small businesses across Kuala Lumpur and
Selangor. Founded by Obie, who brings 17 years of telco and
software engineering experience, the service replaces the
cost of a full-time IT hire with flexible, no-lock-in monthly
plans.

That paragraph carries: who you are (outsourced IT consultancy), where (Setapak, KL), serving whom (KL+Selangor SMBs), what makes it credible (17 years experience), and the implicit comparison (cheaper than full-time IT hire). When a visitor asks "why should I pick you?", the bot synthesises an answer from this.

What bad looks like

We are a leading provider of innovative IT solutions
delivering exceptional value to our valued customers.

That sentence describes literally any IT company. The bot can't construct a real differentiator from it because there isn't one.

Tip — add a "Why us" FAQ

Q: Why should I choose ObieOnline over other IT companies?
A: Three reasons: (1) honest, jargon-free advice — we tell
   you when you don't need something; (2) genuinely fair
   pricing — no monthly lock-ins, no upselling; (3) 17 years
   of telco + software experience means we've seen most
   problems before. We work best with small business owners
   who want to understand what they're paying for.

Direct, specific, repeatable. The bot will quote this when relevant — and it sounds like a human business, not a marketing template.

5. "How do I reach a human?"

The escape hatch. The bot needs to know what to do when the visitor wants to talk to you directly.

This one mostly handles itself if your WhatsApp number is set in Console → Settings → Contact. ObieChat is "WhatsApp-first" by default — when a visitor wants to talk to a human, the bot offers the WhatsApp click-to-chat link, and the visitor lands in WhatsApp with a pre-filled greeting message addressed to you.

But you should add one explicit FAQ to handle the various ways visitors ask:

Q: How do I contact a real person?
A: WhatsApp is the fastest way — tap the WhatsApp button at
   the top of this chat to message Obie directly. We
   typically reply within 1 hour during business hours. If
   you'd prefer email, send to obie@obieonline.com.

This makes the bot's handoff feel deliberate and warm, rather than the visitor feeling like they're being "passed along."

Bonus: phone-first lead capture (turned on by default in ObieChat)

ObieChat ships with phone-first lead capture turned on. Before answering substantive questions (pricing, scope, timeline, availability), the bot politely asks for the visitor's WhatsApp number. This single setting dramatically improves your lead-capture rate — visitors who would otherwise just lurk get nudged toward sharing contact info before the conversation has its big reveal.

The setting is in Console → Settings → Lead capture behaviour. We recommend leaving it on for most businesses. The exception is if you're running an info-heavy content site where you specifically want visitors to self-serve answers without conversion friction — then turn it off.

The 30-minute setup that gives you 80% bot quality

Open ObieChat console. Set aside 30 minutes (one-time investment, almost never need to revisit).

That's it. Save knowledge → smart starter questions auto-regenerate → bot now answers ~80% of common visitor questions from real knowledge.

You can test by clicking the widget on your own website (or in the embed preview in the console) and asking yourself questions visitors would ask. Each "I don't know" answer is a sign of a missing knowledge entry — go back and add it.

What about questions outside the 5?

The other 20% of conversations split roughly:

• Specific product/feature questions — handled by adding service-specific FAQs to that service entry
• Industry-specific concerns — refund policies, warranty terms, deliverables — go in General FAQ
• Logistics — delivery, parking, payment — go in General FAQ
• Outright off-topic — small talk, weather, jokes — the bot politely steers back to your business (this is built-in behaviour)

If you see the same "I don't know" answer come up three times in your conversation logs, add it as a knowledge entry. The bot improves week-over-week as you do this.

The trap to avoid: setting up the bot, then forgetting it

The single most common mistake we see: business owners spend 30 minutes setting up the knowledge base, launch the bot, and then never look at the lead/conversation logs. The bot is doing useful work; you're not catching the patterns.

Check your Console → Insights and Console → Leads every week or two:

• Are visitors asking questions the bot doesn't have answers to?
• Are leads coming through but unqualified (no real intent)?
• Are 👎 ratings clustering on certain types of replies?

Each pattern points to a 30-second knowledge fix. The bot gets better every week you spend 10 minutes on this.

ObieChat's daily digest email does some of this work for you — every morning at 8 AM you get a one-screen summary of yesterday's conversations including any "knowledge gaps" the bot detected (multiple visitors asking about a topic the bot couldn't answer). Use that as your prompt for what to add next.

Ready to set this up?

If you don't have ObieChat yet — sign up free (20 conversations/month, no card needed). Then come back to this post and use it as your 30-minute setup checklist.

Start your free trial →

If you'd rather have all this set up for you — including knowledge writing, branding, multilingual configuration, and ongoing tuning — ObieOnline does an AI Chatbot setup service for KL & Selangor businesses. Setup is a one-time fee; the ObieChat subscription starts at RM 99/month (Starter tier) with Growth and Business tiers available as you scale.

About the author: Obie has 17 years across telco and software development and runs ObieOnline, the consultancy behind ObieChat. The 5-questions framework in this post is the same one we use when setting up ObieChat for paying clients.