How to turn a price list into a chatbot
· 4 min read
If your prices live in a spreadsheet and your staff keep reading them out over the phone, a catalog chatbot can take that load. Preparing the sheet well makes the difference between useful answers and confusing ones.
Clean the sheet first
A chatbot reads your columns, so make them easy to read:
- One header row, with clear names such as "Product", "Category", "Price" and "Stock".
- One item per row, with no merged cells and no notes squeezed into price cells.
- Numbers as plain numbers, so questions like "under 500" can be answered correctly.
- A column that identifies each item, such as a SKU or product code.
Upload and choose the ID column
Upload the CSV or Excel file and pick the ID column. NochBot answers by running structured lookups on your columns, including filters on price and category, and falls back to meaning-based search when a question does not map to a column.
Update without starting over
When prices change, append the new batch. Rows with an ID that already exists are updated instead of duplicated, and new columns can be added. The data refreshes when you upload; it does not live-sync a Google Sheet, so schedule a weekly upload if prices move often.
Share it with the right people
You can embed the chatbot on your website, or share a link. For dealer-only prices, make the link require a sign-in that you approve.