Your Website Chatbot Is Annoying and Probably Hurts Conversions
Ever land on a site, start reading, and ***DING*** a little chatbot pops up before you even process the first sentence? Yeah, me too. And guess what? It’s annoying as heck.
Now, I get it. For the general public, these bots might sometimes be useful. Maybe they help people find extra details. Maybe they generate a few extra leads. But are they actually helping? I know that 9 times out of 10, these things are useless without a real human behind them.
The Flow Killer: Chatbots & Popups That Won’t Shut Up
Imagine this:
- You land on a website.
- DING – Chatbot pops up.
- Close it.
- BOOM – Cookie consent banner.
- Close that.
- Finally, you try to read.
- POP – Another chatbot bubble slides in, begging for attention.
At this point, I’m gone. Not clicking. Not converting. Just leaving. It’s exactly what happened when I was browsing a SaaS a few minutes ago, and not only did I leave their site, I started writing this blog post…
What does that leave the business with? An annoyed visitor who could have been a customer, that just left their site because they couldn’t leave me alone and read about their features and offer in peace.
Here’s what most businesses don’t understand:
Having a great website and UX only to ruin it with an annoying chatbot will hurt your conversions. Probably. Of course, I’m speaking only from my experience, but a quick Google search and you find plenty of complaints on Reddit (example thread) or hackernews, which implies that I’m not the only one feeling the same about this.
Okay fine, if you don’t believe me, or Reddit users (I mean, I don’t blame you), here’s an actual report, done by CDP.com that shows 23% of users find AI chatbots, irritating, and a vast majority find them a bit useless.
Shocking...
So Are Chatbots Helping or Hurting Conversions?
Look, I don’t have hard data on all sites. I’m sure for some businesses, chatbots do help collect leads. But for others? If you’re interrupting people before they even read a word, you might be losing them.
Here’s what I hope if you’re using a chatbot:
✅ It’s not auto-triggering the moment someone lands.
✅ A real agent can take over when needed.
✅ It doesn’t pop up again after being closed.
✅ It actually improves the experience, not frustrates it.
Because let’s be real, if I can’t read your content without getting ambushed by popups and dings, I’m not sticking around. And I bet I’m not the only one.
The Fix? Let People Breathe Before You Sell
Instead of shoving a chatbot in their face instantly, try:
- Letting users engage with the page first.
- Triggering chat only if they scroll to a certain point or stay for a while.
- Offering an easy-to-find but non-intrusive chat button.
Because if your chatbot interrupts before I even decide I’m interested, it’s not helping, it’s just annoying.
The point is that when you don’t have anything of value to add via a chatbot/helper, it’s best to not disturb your visitor, otherwise you might risk the chance of losing them if you annoy them with these new-age pop-ups.
Remember how annoying pop-ups where back in the day? Yeah, chatbots are the new popups. There I said it.
Don’t get me started on how useless they are when you’re actually having a problem and are trying to speak to support… you know to an actual human being, only to be met with Clippy and no real way to talk to someone real.
What’s your take? Have chatbots helped or hurt your conversions? Do you find them useful when browsing websites looking for solutions? Let me know!
