Patchwhistle walkthrough: every feature, step by step

This guide walks through Patchwhistle screen by screen, in the order most people set it up. It is written for owners of cafés, clinics, salons, shops and agencies who want a chatbot that answers customers from their own website, without learning anything technical. It is also the script our team follows when giving a demo.

You do not have to read it in one go. Each section stands on its own, so jump to the part you need from the contents list.

Before you start

You need three things, and none of them is a card.

• Your website address. The chatbot learns from your public pages, so the site should be online.
• Ten minutes for the first setup. Most of that is waiting while Patchwhistle reads your website.
• A way to add a line of code to your site for the final step. If someone else built your site, you can send them the install code later.

It also helps to have a few documents to hand: a price list, a menu, a booking policy or a FAQ sheet. Anything that answers questions customers often ask.

Step 1: Sign up and add your website

Start your free trial

Every new account gets a 14-day free trial. You do not need a card to start, and you only pay if you choose a plan at the end.

Add your website

After signing up, Patchwhistle asks for one thing: your website address, such as yourbusiness.com. Type it and press Train my chatbot. The website name is filled in from the address, so there is nothing else to type.

Patchwhistle then starts reading your website straight away and takes you to the Train screen. You can leave it running and look around while it works.

Step 2: Your Home screen

Home is the first item in the sidebar, under Chatbot. It greets you (good morning, afternoon or evening) and gives you the whole picture on one page.

Your website at a glance

The website card shows your business as Patchwhistle sees it, read live from your homepage:

• your logo, or your site icon if there is no logo
• your brand colours, which you can click to copy
• links to your social media profiles
• your phone number, email, address and opening hours, when your website lists them
• the services your chatbot knows about, with a count if there are many

At the bottom it says when the card was last read from your website. Press Check again after you change your homepage and it reads it again. If contact details are missing, it usually means your website does not show them clearly, which is worth fixing for human visitors too.

Get your chatbot live

Until your chatbot is live, Home shows a three-step checklist. Most sites finish it in a few minutes.

1. 1Train on your content. Add your website, files or Q&A so the chatbot knows your business.
2. 2Customize and install. Pick colours and a welcome message, test answers, then paste one line on your site.
3. 3Get your first conversation. Once visitors start chatting, conversations and leads show up here.

Each step links to the screen where you do it, and ticks itself off when it is done.

How your chatbot is doing

Once visitors start chatting, this section becomes your report. Pick 7, 30 or 90 days at the top. Four tiles show the main numbers, each with the change compared with the previous period of the same length:

Below the tiles you will find:

• Questions per day. A chart of answered questions next to the ones it could not answer, so you can spot a bad day at a glance.
• When visitors chat. Visitor messages by hour of the day, which shows your busiest hours.
• What visitors ask about. The most common words in visitors' questions. This is a quick way to see what people care about.
• Where they chat. Which places the conversations come from, such as your website, plus the average number of messages per conversation.
• Is it getting better? New missed questions per week. As you add answers, this line should go down.

Questions your chatbot couldn't answer

Home lists the latest questions that need an answer, so you can fix them without hunting. Items that your new content already covers are marked Fixed by new content.

Your chatbot card

The last card shows what your chatbot knows and how much of your plan it has used: messages this month against your plan limit, how many pages it has learned, and when it was last updated. If you get close to your monthly limit, Home tells you before it runs out.

Step 3: Train your chatbot

Train is where your chatbot learns your business. Everything it says comes from what you add here. For a deeper look at this step, see how to train a chatbot on your website.

Read your website

When you add a website, Patchwhistle reads it for you. A progress bar shows how far it has got. Later, press Update from website whenever you change your prices, services or opening hours, and it reads your site again.

If it cannot read your site, Train tells you. The most common reason is that the website was offline for a moment, so check it loads in your browser and try again.

Review, then publish

This is the most important idea in Patchwhistle: nothing goes live until you publish. After reading your website, Train shows how many pages are ready and asks you to review them. When you are happy, press Train chatbot (the first time) or Publish changes (after that). Your live chatbot then answers from the new content.

While you have unpublished work, Train shows a reminder that you have unpublished changes. That way you never wonder whether visitors can see something yet.

Pages

The Pages tab lists everything your chatbot has learned: website pages, documents, pasted text and videos. You can search the list, remove anything you do not want, or pause a page. A paused page stays in the list, but your chatbot stops using it until you turn it back on. This is handy for a seasonal offer or a page that is out of date.

From the same tab you can add more content:

• Add text. Give it a title and paste the text, such as a refund policy or a menu. It needs at least 20 characters.
• Add YouTube videos. Paste one or more video links. The chatbot learns from the video's captions, so videos without captions are skipped.
• Upload document. PDF, Word (.docx), plain text (.txt), Markdown (.md) and spreadsheet exports (.csv) are accepted.

Interview

The Interview tab asks you questions about your business in five short sections: what you offer, buying, delivery and timing, after the sale, and practical details. Answer in your own words, the way you would tell a customer. Skip anything that does not apply.

Interview answers are used before anything else your chatbot knows, in every language. A progress bar shows how many you have answered. If you only have time for one extra training step, make it this one.

Unanswered

When a visitor asks something your chatbot cannot answer, the question lands here once, with how often it was asked. For each one you can:

• write the right answer yourself
• ask Patchwhistle to draft an answer from your published content, then check and save it
• ignore it, if it is off-topic

If your content simply does not cover the question, Patchwhistle tells you, and you write the answer yourself. Saved answers become Q&A pairs and your chatbot uses them right away. Questions that new content now answers move to Fixed by new content.

Q&A

Q&A pairs are exact answers to exact questions. Use them for things that must always be said the same way: prices, cancellation rules, parking, what to bring to an appointment. You can add, edit, delete or pause each pair.

Test questions

Test questions are your own checklist of questions the chatbot must get right. For each one you can say what the answer must include, such as a price or a phone number, or tick Should say it doesn't know for questions it should not answer.

Press Check answers to run them all. You see how many were answered correctly, and for any that failed, what the chatbot actually said. Run it again after big changes to your website or training.

Business details

Business details are the basics your chatbot uses to describe you: business name, a short summary, services and offers, who you serve, pricing, policies, locations and the main actions you want visitors to take. Patchwhistle fills these in from your website. Correct anything that looks off, save, and publish to put the changes live.

Which pages to read

This tab controls how Patchwhistle reads your website:

• Page list link (sitemap). If your site has a list of all its pages, paste its link here so nothing is missed.
• Only read pages whose address starts with. For example /services or /menu, if you only want those sections.
• Skip pages whose address starts with. For example /cart or /wp-admin, for pages that would only confuse the chatbot.
• Automatic updates. Choose how often Patchwhistle reads your website again by itself. Watch updates only when you ask. Care adds weekly updates. Complete adds daily updates.
• Publish updates automatically. On Complete, you can let automatic updates go live without you pressing Publish.

If an automatic update fails, Train tells you, and you can run it by hand.

Step 4: Customize and install

Customize & install is where your chatbot gets its look and voice, and where you put it on your website. On the right there is always a Live preview of the chat bubble and a Test answers chat, so you see every change before visitors do.

Appearance

• Brand color. Pick a preset or choose your exact colour.
• Look and placement. Choose a style (such as a header in your colour, a soft tinted header, extra-round corners, or square and high contrast), which side of the screen the chat bubble sits on, how far from the edge, the button shape and an optional button text such as "Ask us anything". You can upload your own button icon too.
• Header and greeting. Set the title, the welcome message visitors see first, and a link to your logo.

Save, and your live chatbot shows the new look within a minute. You do not need to copy the install code again.

How your chatbot should talk

The Behavior tab sets the voice of every answer:

• How your chatbot should talk. Tone and house rules in your own words, for example "Be friendly and concise. Suggest booking a call for pricing questions."
• Tone. Natural, friendly, professional or concise.
• Answer length. Automatic, short, medium or detailed.
• Topics to avoid. If visitors ask about these, the chatbot politely declines and offers your contact details.
• Preferred wording. Words you want used, or avoided, when it talks about your business.
• When the chatbot doesn't know. A button label and link, such as "Contact us" pointing to your contact page, email or phone number.

Whatever you write here, your chatbot still only answers from what you taught it in Train.

The same tab sets your email alerts: where to send them, how to hear about unanswered questions (soon after they happen, one daily summary, or off), a Monday weekly summary, and new lead alerts.

Business processes

The Processes tab walks visitors through a process step by step, with buttons. When someone wants a quote, wants to order, wants to book or needs support, the chatbot asks your questions in order and sends your team a complete request. Each process starts when a visitor mentions words you choose, and each step can be a short typed answer, a choice between buttons, or contact details. Switch on the ones that fit your business and edit the questions.

Test your chatbot

Use Test answers to ask your chatbot anything before it goes live. Try the questions customers really ask, including awkward ones. If an answer is wrong or missing, go back to Train and add the right content or a Q&A.

Install code

The Install tab gives you your install code. Press Copy install code and paste it once, just before the closing body tag of your website, so it appears on every page. Then switch Live on your site on at the top of the screen.

The screen has short instructions for the most common website builders:

• WordPress
• Shopify
• Wix
• Squarespace
• Webflow
• Google Tag Manager

It works on any other website where you can add a line of HTML too. If your web designer looks after your site, copy the code and send it to them.

Advanced settings

The Advanced tab holds the extras. You do not need any of them to get started.

• Usage this month. Messages used against your plan limit. When the limit is reached, visitors see an unavailable message until next month or until you upgrade.
• Starter questions. Up to four buttons shown before a visitor types, such as "What are your prices?"
• Proactive nudge. A small message that invites visitors to chat, shown once per visit. Choose when it appears: after some seconds, after scrolling part of the page, or when they are about to leave.
• Answers. The reply language (auto answers in the visitor's own language, or you can set one), the words that make the contact form appear (such as price, quote or book), and whether to show a Talk to a human button.
• More websites. Other addresses where the same chatbot may appear, such as a help centre or a test copy of your site.
• Shareable page. A full-page chat with its own link, for when you have no website or want to share it on social media or by message.
• Auto-publish answers. On Complete, when visitors keep asking something your published content clearly answers, the chatbot can save that answer itself, at most five a day. Prices, refunds, legal and health topics are never auto-published, and every automatic answer is marked for you to review under Q&A.
• Send to another app. Send new leads and talk-to-a-human requests to Zapier, Make or a similar app (webhook). Paste the link that app gives you.
• Slack channel link. Get alerts in a Slack channel.
• Privacy. Keep conversations for a set number of days, after which they are deleted. Zero keeps them until you delete them.

Speaking with visitors in other languages is covered in more detail in our guide to multilingual website chatbots.

Step 5: Conversations

Conversations is your inbox of every chat. The list on the left shows each visitor, and you can search messages or visitors. Filters at the top help you focus:

• All. Every conversation.
• Needs reply. Visitors who asked to talk to a person.
• Unanswered. Chats with a question the chatbot could not answer.
• Leads. Chats where the visitor left their details.

Read a conversation

Open a chat to see the full exchange. The details panel shows the visitor's name, email and phone if they shared them, how many messages there were and when they were last active. Answers the chatbot was not very sure about are flagged, and you can see which answers visitors marked helpful or not helpful.

Under any flagged answer you can write the correct answer and save it as a Q&A, so the chatbot knows next time. If the visitor left their details, the chat shows a link to your Leads list.

When a visitor asks for a person

If you switched on Talk to a human, visitors can ask for a person at any point. The chat is marked Asked to talk to a person, with their email and any note they left for you. You can reply from the conversation. If the visitor was active in the last 30 minutes, your reply goes into their open chat. Otherwise it is sent to them by email.

If they did not leave an email, Patchwhistle tells you there is no way to reply.

Delete a conversation

You can delete a conversation for good. Any lead from that chat stays in your Leads list.

Step 6: Leads

Leads lists every visitor who left their details. Each lead shows their name, email and phone, the question they asked and when they were captured. A button opens the full conversation, so you always know what they wanted before you call.

You can:

• set a status for each lead, from New and Contacted through to Won or Lost
• email a lead from the dashboard, starting from a template, sending now or later, with two optional gentle follow-ups after two and five days
• press Download list (CSV) to open your leads in Excel or Google Sheets
• get an email alert for each new lead (turn this on under Customize & install, Behavior)

For ideas on getting more visitors to leave their details, read how to capture leads with a website chatbot.

Step 7: Appointments

If your business takes bookings, Appointments lets visitors book a time inside the chat. Switch on Let visitors book in the chat, then set:

• Time zone. The time zone you work in.
• Start times every. How far apart the start times are, in minutes.
• Minimum notice. How many hours ahead someone must book.
• Book up to. How many days ahead visitors can book.
• Opening hours. Your opening and closing time for each day of the week.
• What visitors can book. Each service with its name and length in minutes, for example a haircut of 30 minutes.

Visitors pick a free time and leave their details. You both get an email, and the booking appears in the Appointments list and in Leads. The list shows each booking with the visitor's contact details and a status: confirmed, done or cancelled. You can open the conversation that led to it, or cancel an upcoming booking. If the visitor left an email, they are told it was cancelled.

Step 8: Improving your answers over time

A chatbot gets better the same way a new staff member does: by learning from the questions it gets wrong. Patchwhistle makes this a short weekly habit.

Answers come only from your content

Your chatbot answers only from what you taught it. It does not make up prices, phone numbers or links. When it does not know, it says so honestly and offers a way to reach you: your contact button or a short contact form.

A ten-minute weekly routine

1. 1Open Train, Unanswered and answer the questions visitors asked most.
2. 2Skim Conversations for answers flagged as not very sure or not helpful, and save better answers as Q&A.
3. 3Run Check answers in Test questions to make sure nothing broke.
4. 4If your website changed, press Update from website, review and publish.
5. 5Glance at Is it getting better? on Home. Fewer missed questions each week means it is working.

If you are deciding between a chatbot and a person answering chats, our comparison of AI chatbots and live chat may help.

Step 9: Site health

Every plan includes site health checks for your website, under Monitoring in the sidebar. You do not need to set anything up beyond pressing Run first check.

What it checks

• Website online. Whether your site loads, and how quickly.
• Security certificate (SSL). The padlock in the browser bar. If it stops working, visitors see a warning, so Patchwhistle tells you to ask your web host to renew it.
• Domain renewal. Whether your domain name is paid up, with a warning if it needs renewing within 30 days.
• Page problems. Pages that changed, were added or removed, broken links and leftover sample text.
• Important pages. Pages you choose to watch closely, such as your contact or booking page, including their title and search description.

Alerts and the weekly report

When something goes wrong, you get an alert, and every alert is listed under Alerts. A Weekly report sums up how your website did. You can send alerts and reports to a different email address in Settings.

What Care and Complete add

Fix suggestions are just that: suggestions. Patchwhistle never changes your website without your approval.

Step 10: Websites, billing and settings

Websites

Use the website switcher at the top of the sidebar to move between your websites, or choose Manage websites. Each website has its own chatbot, training, install code, conversations and site health history.

To add one, enter its address. The name is filled in from the address. To delete one, you type the website's name to confirm, because it removes its chatbot, everything it learned and its site health history for good. Leads from that website stay in your Leads list.

Plan & billing

Open Plan & billing from the account menu to see your trial or plan, change plan, or update your payment details. Payments are handled by Dodo Payments.

Settings

Settings collects the rest: email settings, the address for website alerts and reports, a log of the last 100 emails sent on your behalf, contacts who unsubscribed, and the option to delete your account. Deleting your account asks you to type your account email to confirm.

Small comforts

• Collapse the sidebar to a slim row of icons when you want more room.
• Switch between light and dark mode from the account menu.
• The Free tools page in the sidebar has a few free helpers, such as a return-on-investment calculator and page list (sitemap) tools. They are also public at Free tools.

Plans and pricing

Every plan puts a live AI chatbot on your website and includes site health checks. The plans differ in how many websites, pages and messages you get, and how often your chatbot updates itself.

A message is each visitor message your chatbot answers, counted per chatbot.

• Plans are billed monthly through Dodo Payments.
• You can change or cancel any time from Plan & billing. Plan changes are prorated.
• There is no free plan after the 14-day trial.
• When a trial or plan ends, the chatbot stops answering visitors, but your training, conversations and leads are kept. Choose a plan and it picks up where it left off.

See Pricing for the full comparison, and Security for how your data is handled.

Quick checklist

Use this list to check your setup is complete.

1. 1Sign up and add your website address.
2. 2Let Patchwhistle read your website, then review and publish.
3. 3Answer the Interview questions.
4. 4Upload your price list, menu or policy documents, and publish.
5. 5Add a few test questions and press Check answers.
6. 6Set your colours, logo and welcome message.
7. 7Write how your chatbot should talk and add a contact button for when it does not know.
8. 8Turn on new lead alerts.
9. 9Copy the install code, paste it before the closing body tag and switch the chatbot live.
10. 10Turn on bookings if you take appointments.
11. 11Run your first site health check.
12. 12Once a week, clear the Unanswered list.

Still have questions? Our FAQ covers the rest, and our guide to AI chatbots for small business explains where a chatbot helps most.