AI-Powered Customer Service: HeiChat’s CEO Dave Hu on the Future of E-Commerce


Written by: Predrag Vlatkovic

WebsitePlanet had the pleasure of speaking with Dave Hu, CEO of HeiChat, about the groundbreaking AI chatbot that’s redefining customer service for e-commerce brands. Dave delves into the origins of HeiChat, its tailored features for Shopify and WooCommerce users, and how it’s streamlining customer interactions for online retailers. Enjoy!

What is HeiChat and what’s the story behind creating it?

In early 2023, Alex (my CTO and co-founder) and I were very excited about the technology of ChatGPT. Before HeiChat, we were Shopify sellers ourselves and also purchased a lot of Shopify apps. When GPT-3.5 allowed us to call it in the form of an API, we immediately realized that this was a new opportunity for AI customer service.The old AI customer service was implemented through NLP and was workflow-based. Merchants needed to set up multiple trigger words to prompt responses, and if a customer’s inquiry deviated from the workflow, it would appear very unintelligent. Moreover, it did not support multiple languages (mainly English-based).However, GPT was different and changed everything. We only spent a month and a half from researching technical solutions to finally launching on Shopify (April 29, 2022). We had our first paying customer within three days of launching, who is still our paying customer to this day.

How can HeiChat be added to a website and how much management does it require after being added?

If the e-commerce brand uses Shopify for website building, it can be installed with just one click. It takes only 3 minutes to set up and go live. You can simply go to this page and click install.Most of the things that chatbots require, we obtain through the structured data API provided by the platform, so there’s very little that the e-commerce brand needs to set up. However, we have also opened up a lot of customizable content. Each brand has its own needs and can explore the customizable part as much as they want.If the e-commerce brand uses WordPress/WooCommerce, it’s a bit different. The e-commerce brand will need to first register at heichat.net, and then follow the onboarding process to set up. The difference with Shopify is that WooCommerce cannot automatically obtain product details, the related pages need to be manually uploaded in the AI’s knowledge base. You can choose URL upload.Integrating an AI chatbot into a website is easy, but what happens next? I believe that after integrating AI, the customer service workflow of e-commerce brands has changed. After integration, firstly, AI operates 24/7, so in the absence of human customer service, AI handles all customer inquiries. There is no need for shift work anymore, and there is no need to worry about weekends.Human customer service only needs to supervise AI, see how AI handles customer inquiries, find out which problems AI cannot handle, and then human customer service can intervene. Human customer service only needs to focus on work orders, refunds, returns, and other tasks that AI does not have the authority to perform.

How can a client train their own AI and affect the answers given to customers?

  • We have enabled customization of prompts for our AI customer service, but of course, it can still perform well even without customizations.
  • Website owners can upload custom knowledge base content in any format so that the AI can refer to these contents to provide answers.
  • If website owners are not satisfied with the AI’s answers, they can use correction to train the AI. The next time similar questions are encountered, the AI will respond with the answers it has been trained with.

What different pricing plans do you offer and what’s the difference between them? What benefits does each of them offer?

HeiChat offers a free package. The free package includes 800k AI tokens, which can be used for most of the product features. In addition to the free package, if a user’s usage exceeds 800k, they can choose to purchase tokens separately or upgrade to a subscription package.HeiChat offers three subscription packages: Pro, Pro Plus, and Pro Max. The most direct difference is the amount of tokens given monthly. The token level of Pro is sufficient for 1-2 customer consultations per day, while Pro Plus is sufficient for 5-10 customer consultations per day, and Pro Max offers even more.Pro Plus/Pro Max support binding with WhatsApp and live chat, and automatically remove “powered by HeiChat.” Users can freely choose the various packages based on their store’s needs.

What’s in store for HeiChat going forward?

  • HeiChat is about to launch a mobile app, which allows merchants to view the customer interactions handled by the chatbot and to immediately intervene with live-chat anytime and anywhere using their mobile phones. It will also allow mobile access to functions such as viewing work orders.
  • HeiChat will integrate more deeply with WooCommerce to provide a better experience for WordPress/WooCommerce customers.

To learn more about HeiChat, you can visit heichat.net


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