Never let a good crisis go to waste. (Nothing forces the mind to focus quite like a crisis.) This is particularly useful advice when deploying a chatbot. Many chatbot deployments fail due to a lack of focus or attempts to do too much. Organizations that started, or expanded, chatbot usage in response to extreme circumstances such as call spikes driven by COVID had to take practical approaches to solve existential problems. The lessons from these painful but successful deployments can help organizations deliver chatbots that provide positive customer experiences while driving down costs.