Custom responses

What a custom response is

A custom response pairs a visitor message with a saved answer. When a visitor types that message, the bot returns your answer exactly as you wrote it. Retrieval and the AI are bypassed entirely: nothing is searched, nothing is generated, and nothing is rephrased.

Matching ignores case. "what are your hours", "What are your hours", and "WHAT ARE YOUR HOURS" all trigger the same response.

Add a custom response

Open your chatbot and go to the Custom Responses tab.

• Enter the visitor message that should trigger the response.
• Write the answer exactly as it should appear in chat.
• Save. The response is live for that message from then on.

When to use them

Use a custom response wherever the wording matters more than flexibility:

• Legal or compliance wording that must be delivered word for word, with no rephrasing by the AI.
• Greetings you want phrased one fixed way, every time.
• Short, high-stakes answers where any variation is a risk, such as a disclaimer or a safety notice.

When not to use them

Custom responses are a poor fit for questions people phrase in many ways. Matching is exact apart from case, so "When are you open?" does not trigger a response saved for "what are your hours". The unmatched question simply falls through to normal retrieval and AI, which is usually what you want.

For broad topics, train the content instead: add it to a text snippet or your website sources so the AI can handle any phrasing. To control how the AI answers overall, see the Response Engine and answer styles.