Ask the awkward ones first.

Your Chatterbox is customer-service intelligence for South African organisations. Customers can use your customer-service interface. Telephone, two-way SMS and forwarded customer-service email can be added for the job you choose. It understands what they need, remembers prior conversations, applies your rules, and hands over complex cases with full context, without replacing the systems you already use.

No. A dialler moves calls. A chatbot answers on one page. A call-centre platform routes people. Your Chatterbox is the intelligence between the customer and your operation: it uses your knowledge, keeps one thread across channels, and hands work to your team with the context intact.

No. An IVR routes callers through menus. Voicemail stores a recording. Your Chatterbox captures what the person needs and creates a structured next step. A voice message in the customer-service interface is not voicemail. Voicemail only applies when a real telephone number or call is involved.

Three connected failures in customer service: inbound requests lost when staff cannot take them, outbound notifications that create replies nobody handles, and the internal administration and context that disappears between channels, teams and systems. Your Chatterbox connects all three so every interaction leads to an answer, an allowed action or a structured handover.

No. People keep judgement, approval, exception handling and accountability. Your existing systems stay in place and remain the official records. Your Chatterbox handles the conversation; it does not keep a second copy of your records.

Preview Your website, your documents, or both. No integration project, no new infrastructure and no development.

Your private Preview is prepared in days once we have agreed the website or documents to use. Your team tests it on real questions. The timing of a Trial, Pilot or Live setup depends on the job.

No. The private Preview is free. Your team tests it on your own knowledge. If it is not right for your organisation, you stop.

No. Testing is private. Nothing changes for your customers until your organisation approves it.

The next step depends on the job. A written customer-service interface can move directly from Preview to Live. A short Trial can test an added ability. Live voice, telephone and SMS use an appropriate Pilot to confirm how the service will operate. You do not have to complete every stage.

From your approved knowledge: published pages, policies, product guides, rate cards, operating procedures or FAQs you provide.

Your Chatterbox is bound to your approved knowledge. When it does not find an approved answer, it says so clearly and routes the customer to your team, rather than inventing one.

During setup and testing, contradictions and gaps surface so your team can correct them before anything touches customer-facing channels.

You update knowledge in your administration interface, or your Chatterbox re-reads the website pages and documents you approved. Changes take effect on the next conversation.

No unapproved learning happens automatically. Conversation patterns surface for your team to review, but new answers require explicit approval.

Customers can use your customer-service interface. Telephone and two-way SMS can be added for the job. You can also forward customer-service emails to your Chatterbox for handling or a draft reply for your team's approval. Your Chatterbox can also join the phone system you already have, so a live conversation can be transferred to a person, a department or an extension with the context attached. You choose the access and abilities your organisation needs.

Where supported, you can divert calls from your existing numbers to your Chatterbox after hours, when lines are busy, or for all calls. We confirm the setup during your Pilot. You retain number ownership.

Yes, once Conversational SMS is set up and proved with you in a Pilot. Customers reply to a text and continue the conversation in that thread, with the earlier context kept.

A conversation window that opens in any phone or computer browser from a link, a QR code or your website. Nothing to install. Customers can type, send a voice note or talk live.

No. WhatsApp is a messaging app some organisations already use. Your Chatterbox is not a replacement for it, and it does not depend on it. Customers reach your Chatterbox through the customer-service interface, and through telephone or SMS when you open those doors.

In written interaction through your customer-service interface: all of South Africa's 11 official spoken languages. In voice notes and live voice: English, isiZulu and Afrikaans, with additional languages added as models become available.

South African customers frequently mix languages in a single conversation. Your Chatterbox understands code-switched inputs and responds accurately within your approved knowledge.

Handovers to your team include a structured English summary of the customer's need, alongside the original verbatim input.

When the customer asks for a person, when the topic falls outside approved knowledge, when emotion or urgency is high, or when an action requires human authority. Urgent matters are recognised, flagged with the reason, and handed to your team.

The full conversation, what the customer needs, what was already answered, and what still has to be done, so the customer does not repeat themselves.

Via email and structured handover to your team, or direct phone transfer when telephone access is enabled.

No. They stay. Your Chatterbox holds the conversation that follows the call or the message: the reply, the details, the next step and the record. Joining your Chatterbox to your dialler or PABX, or handing a live conversation to one of your people, is a short Pilot of its own. Where you have no dialler, telephony access on your own numbers is arranged in the Pilot. No IT project. No accounting changes.

Consent is checked before campaign texts. Permitted contact hours under the Consumer Protection Act, and any dispute or debit-order hold on an account, decide which accounts a campaign call or text goes to. Opt-out and do-not-contact records suppress further campaign calls, texts and emails, and STOP ends reminders on every channel. Your team sees one record of what was asked, what was answered and what still needs a person. Knowledge and conversations stay in your Chatterbox, and handling follows the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). These are operational rules your Chatterbox enforces, not legal advice. More on security, hosting and who can see your data is in the Security, POPIA and privacy section.

No. Payment stays with the channels you already use. When a subscriber says they have already paid, your Chatterbox records the payment claim for your team to check against your bank statement.

You do. A campaign is drawn from your age analysis by the rules you set: which accounts and which age. Accounts on a dispute hold, a debit-order hold, or opted out are excluded before anything is sent, and your team can take any account out.

Your Chatterbox is built to support your organisation's compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Personal information is processed strictly under your organisation's mandate as the responsible party. Consent is checked before campaign texts, opt-out and do-not-contact records suppress campaign calls and texts, and data is not used to train shared external models.

Production infrastructure is hosted strictly in South Africa, with encryption in transit and at rest.

No. Your conversation data and proprietary knowledge belong exclusively to your organisation.

Retention periods follow your organisation's data retention policy. Information is deleted when its period ends, and you can export it before then.

One monthly fee for the whole job, not a charge per call, message or account. Quoted on the scope of the job before you commit.

Start with the recurring job you want handled. What triggers the contact, how often does it happen, and what does answering and following up cost today? What does a missed or late contact cost your organisation? Who will act on the captured requests and replies, and what will you measure to judge the result?

Use the Evaluation Guide's questions to judge the value of the job.

Operational service levels and support terms are agreed in writing as part of your deployment, backed by dedicated technical support in South Africa.

Email chatterbox@backchat.co.za, or use any request button on this page. Backchat scopes the test with your team.