Chatbots are creating a huge impact behind the businesses in terms of growth hacking. Yeah, right. But we all know that they can be incredibly annoying. You go online to resolve a quick issue, and suddenly you're talking to a machine that has no idea what you're saying. It's like talking to a wall, right?
The Misery of Miscommunication
You type out a perfectly coherent question, and what does the chatbot do? It replies with something totally unrelated or asks you to rephrase your query. I mean, isn't the point of technology to make life easier? Now you're stuck in this weird cycle, trying to figure out how to make the chatbot understand you. And, let's be real, half the time it doesn't get any better.
According to the survey we carried out last year, a whopping 72% of respondents said they found chatbots more frustrating than helpful. Talk about a tech fail, right?
What Are Chatbots?
A chatbot is a bot (short for "robot") is inanimate conversation software that would engage you online just like any human would, when you need information on a product or service. Chatbots can answer your questions relevant to the product or service that you would be seeking online at the time. They "help you" to search, means they make you feel that whatever you're searching for, you're not doing it alone.
If you are getting a lot of queries from the customers about your business activities, you can let chatbots handle them. Then you will be in a position to provide a better service level to the customers by helping them understand the matters they are dealing with.
Also, you can have your online business open 24 hours a day, seven days a week by employing a chatbot. You will be able to save a considerable amount of money, as you won’t need to keep a few people working in the shift to respond to the customers' queries.
Zero Emotional Intelligence
And don't even get me started on emotional cues. You could be furious, desperate for help, and all the chatbot will offer is a "Sorry, I didn't understand that. Can you please rephrase your question?" It's like talking to a broken record that doesn't care how scratched it is. A human would at least acknowledge your frustration, right?
Yamanashi Wizz Club's study revealed that 81% of online users would prefer to talk to a human customer service agent over a chatbot. No shock there. Humans can actually understand nuance, you know?
As a business owner, by delegating a chatbot as your "customer service manager", you will not only save a cost to employ a real person behind the computer, you will also save all other office costs and training costs, although some costs to "train the bots" will incur (this will be explained later on). So you think you'll save your time by getting your work done quickly. But the results? Your customers may leave because they know by now that dealing with robots is a total waste of time.
Related Post: Chat With A Chatbot – How Interesting Can It Be?
Bots Are AI
Typically Siri and Alexa voice services, chatbots are identified as Artificial Intelligence as they are doing what a human would and more. Of course, they would never be annoyed about whatever you ask it. Patience is its forte and bots would never lose its cool. They would not snap back even when provoked, as they are programmed to tell their customers exactly what they want to know.
There is software available today using this type of Artificial Intelligence to interact with customers, and many leading companies are using bots to communicate with their customers to pursue marketing and sales even extending to the customers after sales service.
55% of respondents in the survey we carried out said they spent longer trying to resolve an issue with a chatbot than they would have with a human. Time is money, and chatbots seem to be costing us.
Bots are AI, and AI will drive the future of bots. The people who create bots have already started paying their attention to this fact. For the bots to become more intelligent, they need to be provided with appropriate training. A large volume of data is required for training as well. Hence, the bots are designed to learn as they offer their services to humans.
From every single user query, the bots will memorize every possible protocol to answer. As a result, the bots are improving their performance continually. And this is creating a robust platform where we can build new, even more sophisticated, intelligent bots in the future.
One-Track Mind
The narrow-mindedness of chatbots is another sore point. Ask anything a tiny bit off their script, and they're lost. You could be on an e-commerce site asking about two closely related products, and the chatbot will act like you're speaking two different languages. So you end up dumbing down your questions just to get some sort of answer, and even then, it's hit or miss. Isn't this the exact opposite of convenience?
The Illusion of Being "Helpful"
Chatbots are often touted as a quick way to get answers. That's laughable, to be honest. How many times have you been redirected to a FAQ page you've already read three times? Or worse, the chatbot ends up giving you information that contradicts what's on the website. Who's overseeing this mess?
So, Where's The Human?
After wasting a good chunk of time, you finally give up and ask to speak to a human. And what happens? You're put in a queue. If I wanted to wait, I would've gone that route from the start, right?
Look, I'm not saying technology is bad. But chatbots are like that friend who offers to help you move, then just ends up breaking all your stuff. They're just not as useful as they're made out to be. So, the next time someone tells you how chatbots are the future of customer service, you have my full permission to roll your eyes.
Interacting Through Bots
47% of users in our study claimed that chatbots gave them information that directly contradicted what was stated on the website they were visiting. That's not just unhelpful; it's misleading.
Customer interaction could be hassle free when customers are happy to hear what they ask of what they want to know. Access to an unlimited amount of information is available to bots in the database unlike a human at the other end who could be at wit's end to answer questions that they would not have the answer to. Bots are Artificial Intelligence and have all the information just like an encyclopedia with the advantage of getting the response instantaneously and delivering it to the customers at the other end.
Bots on Social Media
The introduction of the Social media bots has opened up to 900 million opportunities connected into one large family with interaction possible with each one of them, and that is one big family for businesses to interact with. Businesses can use bots with other applications through their vast customer base to help track what their customers think and the preferences they have.
Facebook is one of the prominent social media networks, which uses bots to provide a better service to the users. In today’s world, you can see Facebook pages that have integrated bots. You will be able to directly communicate with those pages and get all the details you want with the assistance of these bots.
Building Bridges with Bots
Bots have provided an opportunity to build bridges with millions worldwide, taking every message that companies want right to the palms of their customers through their smartphones.
Customers could get access to anything they need to know without the hassle of waiting for someone human at the other side of the line to obtain the information they want whereas bots would have the answers and provide them instantaneously.
Some say that the idea of adding a human touch by reaching out to your customers personally, is old-fashioned. Bots allow you to make your business known to more potential customers than ever and take care of a mass number of them all at the same time, without taking a break. For that reason, if you need to get closer to your customers, the best way is to get your bots working for you.
Bots the Future
Like companies would want a trouble-free relationship with their customers, customers too would wish to smoother relationships with the companies they want to deal with and get all the information they need before they engage any further and make a purchase. Hence the communication traffic is two way. Most confrontations occur when the wrong information is provided to customers due to human error, but with bots, this is less likely to happen.
Conclusion
If you are a business owner, you should never ignore the importance of bots. They are in a position to create a massive positive impact on your business. Therefore, you are strongly encouraged to think about appropriately using bots, so that you will be able to stay away from pain and frustration that you will have to go through in the future.
