“Chatbot” is used for at least four different things that do very different jobs, from the free auto-reply that comes with LINE OA to systems that use AI to read real questions and answer prices and availability on their own. This page shows what each type can actually do, where the lines for healthcare differ from ordinary shops, and 7 questions to put to every vendor before you sign.
Ordered from cheapest to most expensive, and from answering the least to answering the most. The last one isn't always the best choice — if you get three messages a day, auto-reply is enough.
Comes with LINE OA and Facebook pages, no extra cost
Welcome messages, opening hours, a map. Set it once and you're done. It's good for letting patients know someone is there, but it can't answer real questions at all. Everyone who asks about prices gets the same message back.
General tools, thousands of baht per month
Patients pick from buttons laid out in a flow. It works well for questions with fixed answers, like branch addresses or opening hours. But once a patient types their own question, the system loops back to the menu, and a flow that grows every month turns into something nobody dares to touch.
General tools, thousands of baht per month
You set rules: if this word appears, reply with that. The problem is that people ask the same thing a dozen different ways. Worse, it always picks the closest-looking answer. A patient asks about an allergic reaction and gets a reply about a promotion.
Includes knowledge setup, tens of thousands of baht per month
It reads what the patient typed, checks it against your clinic's real information that we set up for you, and writes the answer itself. It can answer three questions in one message, follow the conversation, and knows when to stop and hand off to a person. This is what AIB Clinic does.
Where clinics run into trouble most is the bottom three rows, not the top two.
| Real situations in the inbox | Auto-reply / menu / keyword | AI Bot |
|---|---|---|
| A patient asks the price in words nobody set up | Gets stuck or loops back to the menu | Answers if the clinic has the information |
| Three questions in one sentence | Catches only one | Answers all three in one message |
| They follow up with “What about for men?” | Doesn't know what it refers to | Knows it's still the same topic |
| The promo changes this month | Rebuild the flow or edit keywords | Tell it in plain language, then confirm |
| Something the clinic never added | Pushes the closest-looking answer | Says your team needs to answer, then hands off |
| Collect name and phone for your team | Only if the patient follows the flow to the end | Asks during the chat, then alerts your team |
| Monthly upkeep | The clinic maintains the flow | Our team maintains the knowledge |
Want the long version of where button bots stop and where an AI Bot can pick up? — Read the point-by-point comparison
A shop that answers wrong loses a sale. A healthcare provider that answers wrong loses credibility, and it may become a matter the licensed practitioner is accountable for. These four lines are the guardrails we set for every clinic from day one, whatever the specialty.
Put these questions to every vendor you're comparing, including us. If a vendor answers “yes” to points 5 and 6, be extra careful: it means the system is willing to cross lines a healthcare provider shouldn't.
For the clear aligners promo right now, how many installments can I pay in? And do I need a cleaning first?
This month's clear aligners promo is 89,000 baht. You can pay 0% over 10 months with participating cards. As for cleaning or other prep, the dentist needs to examine you first to see what's needed.
And how many visits?
Usually an adjustment every 4–6 weeks. The number of visits depends on your case, and the dentist can tell you at the first exam. Would you like to leave your name and number so we can book that exam?
Ours starts at 8,900 THB/month with no setup fee. That includes our team collecting your clinic's information and setting the guardrails, plus a unified inbox for every channel — See all plans
Aesthetic clinics get asked about promos and recovery time. Dental clinics get asked about braces prices and dentist availability. Labs get asked how to prepare before a test. So the answer sets and guardrails are set up separately from day one.
See what your specialty gets asked most, and which guardrails we set for it — All clinic types · Aesthetic & skin · Dental · Physiotherapy
If you get only a few messages a day and always reply within a few minutes, not yet. The numbers that actually decide it are how many people message outside business hours and how long the first reply takes. If a lot of people message between 9 pm and 1 am and only hear back the next morning, that is where you start losing real cases.
The auto-reply built into LINE OA only responds to keywords you set up in advance. It works for welcome messages, opening hours and maps. When a patient types one sentence with three questions in it, such as the price, installment terms and a slot this Saturday, that kind of system catches one keyword at best, or none.
It depends on the type. The auto-reply that comes with LINE OA and Facebook pages costs nothing extra. Most menu-button bot builders are in the thousands of baht per month. Systems that use AI to read real questions, with someone setting up your clinic's knowledge for you, are in the tens of thousands per month. AIB Clinic starts at 8,900 THB/month with no setup fee.
No, and ours is set up not to from day one. Healthcare providers have clear lines that ordinary shops don't: no diagnosing, no making the call in place of a doctor, no promising results, and no recommending medicines or dosages. A doctor has to handle those. The system's job is to get the patient to a doctor as quickly as possible. Clinics that want the system to suggest general options from a face photo can turn that on themselves. The system then speaks only within criteria written by the clinic's own doctors, asks for consent before looking at any photo, and always ends by inviting the patient to book an in-person assessment.
Most menu-button bot builders are designed for DIY, which works if someone on your team has time to maintain the flow every month. With us, our team collects your clinic's information, tunes the answers and sets the guardrails for you. The hard part isn't switching it on. It's gathering what your clinic charges for what, and under which conditions.
Most clinics switch off a chatbot for two reasons: patients ask something outside the script and the bot gets stuck, or the bot's information falls behind what the page has posted. The first is solved by a system that reads real questions instead of matching keywords. The second is solved by letting the clinic update the information itself in seconds. If you want to see how it avoids the old problems, book a demo and throw the questions that broke your old bot at it.
No preparation needed. Tell our team what patients ask most, then watch live whether it can answer. If your clinic doesn't get enough messages yet, we'll tell you plainly there's no rush.
