What breaks when you plug an agent into an existing ERP

The conversational part of a sales agent takes a few days to build. What takes six weeks is making it reliable on data that was never designed to be read by a machine.

Inventory is never a single number

In the client's ERP, the same item existed under three quantities: theoretical stock, reserved stock and what was available on the shelf. None of them was wrong, and none of them alone answered the end customer's question. The first version of the agent gave inaccurate availability one time in five.

An agent doesn't fix data quality. It makes it visible all at once, outside the company.

Product master data differs from one channel to another

The name at the checkout, the one on the website and the one customers used on the phone were three different vocabularies. We had to build a mapping table before we could correctly answer a request phrased in everyday language.

Escalation to a human must be decided early

We set three escalation rules in the second week: discount requests, complaints, and any question about an order already placed. Without these rules, the agent tries to answer and commits the company on matters that are not its call.

• Two weeks on the three inventory definitions and the rule we settled on.
• One week on the product name mapping table.
• Three weeks of supervised pilot before full launch.