Hello everyone,

I am getting a lot of messages from clients who just contact me to say hi or ask questions that are unnecessary because my website has all the details about this. I am thinking about setting up a chatbot that will intervene during the first contact phase in order to weed out the time wasters. Has anyone tried this approach? I am quite not sure it's the best thing to do because the human aspect matters a lot in BDSM sessions.

To clarify, it's just a method for initial filtering. After a few exchanges, I will take back control of the conversation.

Here are the pros and cons I was able to list:

Pros:

for me:

• I can save a lot of time every day
• Don't have to deal with clients who don't bother reading a short paragraph displayed next to a contact page
• Timewasters and jerkers know it's a bot so they won't get off by just talking
• Can have a better view of what clients need
• Chatbot can be a central part of my marketing strategy

for clients:

• Can get an immediate answer to their questions
• Know it's a bot so no fear of judgment, and no fear of wasting time
• Answers are in message format so no need to read a huge chunk of text

Cons:

for me:

• Fewer great interactions
• Maybe harder to understand needs immediately
• Additional costs in my software stack
• Need time to customize it and make it fit my stack
• As a huge privacy nerd, I think it is less private (not open-source, not E2E encrypted)
• Some potentially great clients will be turned off by the idea of using a chatbot and see someone else

for clients:

• Fewer interactions with the provider that are great to build the lust
• harder to communicate needs
• Less anonymous

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What to you think? I would love to know the opinion of other providers as well as clients.