Getting the Best Results from our Chatbot – Think Before You Chat

Welcome back to the E Portal Essex Chatbot blog series. This week in part 2, we’re looking at the way you talk to a chatbot. It makes a big difference to the responses you get.

If you walk into a meeting room and say “I need some help with keeping volunteers safe”, you’ll probably get a few nuggets of general advice and maybe a few questions about your circumstances. Once you are clear about what you need, more relevant help will follow.

The same is true with a Chatbot. The more specific you are, the more personalised and useful the response will be.

The AI behind Chatbots (the ‘Large Language Models’) have ingested the whole of the Internet into their knowledge base and know a huge amount of information about every topic. But at any point in time, you only need to know a tiny fraction of a percent of what it has learned. The trick is to tease that out in the easiest way possible.

A good human conversation involves a bit of back and forth, and that applies here too. Don’t be afraid to keep chatting with the bot.

You could start by explaining your organisation and situation in a few steps. The Bot will build up a picture of the context and start suggesting useful ideas. Keep adding detail and ask it to refine its initial answers until you have something really useful.

Think of it as delegating a task to a new colleague. You don’t get the final result with the first interaction - it takes a little time for you both to get onto the same page. The more you chat, the more tailored and helpful the result.

Real world example: “We’re a small charity engaging young people on the streets in Clacton. What are our responsibilities around safeguarding volunteers?”

“Ask me some questions and make the advice really specific”

Then follow up: “Can you give us a checklist of things we should have in place"

“How can we show we’re compliant in a funding application?”

"Give me a paragraph to show the volunteers we take safeguarding seriously”

"Do we need a full policy?"

"How long should it be?"

"Please ask me some questions and then draft the policy for me."

"Make it a bit simpler"

“Draft a risk assessment for me to review.”

“Put it into a table format” ... etc.

From our website you can click through to your own OpenAI user, or you can use the popup chat icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and start straight away.

Call to action: Set aside 5 minutes and give the Chatbot a topic to explore. Keep chatting until the output gives you the insights you need. You’ll see the difference!

Next week: How to Get Personal Without Oversharing!