Kerry Dimmer
It is hard to find South African estate agencies that use a chatbot on their website, yet you might say it’s the norm in many other nations worldwide. Aside from retail websites and some of the larger corporates, SA’s slowness in adopting chatbots across specialised industries seems sluggish…
We asked Arthur Goldstuck, analyst, technology commentator, and founder of World Wide Worx (a tech market research organisation), why that is? “The short answer: a combination of structural limitations and strategic hesitation. The longer answer is that while South Africa is rich in innovation and talent, the environment that supports scalable Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption is still underdeveloped. Connectivity remains patchy, digital skills are unevenly distributed, and technology investment is often seen as a grudge purchase rather than a growth driver.
“That said, a great deal of AI innovation is happening locally. What we often lack is not the technology, but the trust and the infrastructure to deploy it at scale. AI still feels like a luxury in sectors that are just trying to keep the lights on, both figuratively and literally.”
Rawson’s experience
Rawson Property Group has ‘Rawson Assist’, which isn’t a full-blown chatbot per se but more of a chatbot icon, says Debbie Reabow, marketing and brand manager. “Besides making it an easy and convenient feature for clients to provide their contact info and property details, it provides a value-added resource in the form of an ebook, presenting important information to the potential seller on the journey of selling their property.”
The Group is finding benefit from the convenience of having a 24/7 on-call chatbot that provides an immediate response, thereby contributing to good customer support and service. “As a result, we, and our customers, rate our chatbot highly. Not only does it enhance our customer service, but it also contributes positively to the balance of internal staff workflows as the bot assists by automating tasks and responses and can respond to multiple clients simultaneously.” It further provides the Group with analytics of those engaging with the bot online, which can be used to deepen marketing efforts.
Via Rawson Assist, customers are assigned to a “human” agent who will contact them to introduce himself/herself, obtain more information about the property, and schedule a valuation at a convenient time.
That there is still a human connection is important, in a South African context, and more so in the property environment where, as Goldstuck points out, “timing is everything. A delayed response can mean a lost sale or a missed viewing. Chatbots give estate agents the ability to respond instantly to queries at any hour — whether it’s a request to view a property, a question about levies, or simply “Is this still available?
Even a basic chatbot can act as a virtual assistant, capturing leads and providing essential information while agents are out hosting showhouses or stuck on the N3 to Umhlanga. Competition is fierce and differentiation is hard to maintain, meaning that a chatbot that can handle the front-line queries is both a convenience and a strategic edge.”
Of course, that edge is only real if the bot is functional. “Too many bots today are little more than a choose-your-own-adventure version of the website, with no intelligence or flexibility. But a well-designed chatbot, especially one that learns from user interactions, can make a measurable difference to lead generation and client service,” says Goldstuck.
Dumbing it down
Chatbot capability spans a broad spectrum, explains Goldstuck. “On one end, you have rule-based bots that work off simple decision trees, and are good for answering the same 10 questions over and over. These are easy to implement and ideal for estate agents just starting out with automation.
“On the more advanced end, AI-powered chatbots can learn from interactions, understand user intent, and process natural language in ways that begin to resemble human conversation. Machine learning allows these bots to improve over time, picking up on patterns, refining responses, and handling more nuanced queries.”
Goldstuck also points out that for estate agents, “the good news is that they don’t need to dive into the deep end from the start. A phased approach works: begin with a basic bot for FAQs and lead capture, then feed it interaction data and refine it using AI tools provided by the platform. The key is ongoing management: a chatbot is not a set-and-forget tool. Like a junior agent, it needs training, supervision, and the occasional performance review.”
Three pros and cons
Chatbots offer an always-on, instant-response solution. From customer service to sales support, they promise scale without the payroll, and consistency without the caffeine. “In other words,” says Goldstuck, “they’re a business owner’s dream. Of course, much of that is in theory.
“In practice, many so-called ‘AI chatbots’ are simply glorified interfaces for a website’s menu – repackaged FAQS wearing a speech bubble. But the perception of convenience and the potential to genuinely streamline interactions continue to drive their popularity. As the underlying AI improves, so does its usefulness.”
Three advantages and disadvantages of a chatbot from an SA perspective:
3 Positives:
- 24/7 Availability – A chatbot doesn’t take sick leave, knock off early, or go silent during load shedding. It’s a consistent digital presence, which is rare in any business environment.
- Customer triage – Bots can handle repetitive queries at scale, freeing human agents to deal with more complex or sensitive issues.
- Cost efficiency – Once set up properly, a chatbot can reduce the cost per interaction significantly compared to traditional call centres or live agents.
3 Negatives:
- Limited depth – Many bots aren’t much more than automated menus. The moment a customer asks a question off-script, the bot is out of its depth and traps one in a logical loop.
- Language and localisation – In a multilingual country like South Africa, most bots still struggle with anything beyond standard English, let alone informal speech or local dialects.
- Impersonal experience – If not properly trained or maintained, chatbots can frustrate customers more than they assist them, especially when there’s no easy handover to a human.
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