Why our Messenger booking bot doesn't use an LLM to decide what to say (and went from 55% to 71% on real guest messages)

Description and use

<p><em>By Jonald Penpillo, AI developer and software engineer in General Santos City, Philippines.</em></p> <p>Most guests of a sports venue in the Philippines don't open a booking page. They open Facebook Messenger and type something like:</p> <blockquote> <p>magkano ang driving range</p> </blockquote> <p>That's Tagalog for "how much is the driving range?". The next guest writes in English, the one after in Bisaya, and plenty write in Taglish, switching languages mid-sentence. They expect an instant answer, at any hour, and an exact price.</p> <p>This is the story of <strong>Range AI</strong>

Problem

<p><em>By Jonald Penpillo, AI developer and software engineer in General Santos City, Philippines.</em></p> <p>Most guests of a sports venue in the Philippines don't open a booking page. They open Facebook Messenger and type something like:</p> <blockquote> <p>magkano ang driving range</p> </blockquote> <p>That's Tagalog for "how much is the driving range?". The next guest writes in English, the one after in Bisaya, and plenty write in Taglish, switching languages mid-sentence. They expect an instant answer, at any hour, and an exact price.</p> <p>This is the story of <strong>Range AI</strong>

Outcome

<p><em>By Jonald Penpillo, AI developer and software engineer in General Santos City, Philippines.</em></p> <p>Most guests of a sports venue in the Philippines don't open a booking page. They open Facebook Messenger and type something like:</p> <blockquote> <p>magkano ang driving range</p> </blockquote> <p>That's Tagalog for "how much is the driving range?". The next guest writes in English, the one after in Bisaya, and plenty write in Taglish, switching languages mid-sentence. They expect an instant answer, at any hour, and an exact price.</p> <p>This is the story of <strong>Range AI</strong>

Evidence

Why our Messenger booking bot doesn't use an LLM to decide what to say (and went from 55% to 71% on real guest messages)

Source