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A couple of things from a UX POV:
1. Most chatbots are just decision trees, which means I need to answer multiple questions to get the context of my issue across. I can explain much quicker and easier to a human.
2. Imitating human interactions is a confusing / dishonest / annoying and disappointing.
- Why aren't responses instant and instead I have to wait until the bot is "typing"
- Why do I need to waste time on formalities with a bot
- Why is answering fixed questions in a chat format easier than me filling in a form?
- After trying to sell friendliness and "intelligence", down the line I find out that it doesn't really GET what I'm asking, so I just wasted a good chunk of time playing the "real conversation" game with a dumb algorithm.
At the same time they make total sense from a business POV.
@kaolti It's always that double edged sword, from a business perspective its great but from a customer perspective its irritating! Totally get that!
@abadesi I think some places are starting to realize consumers feel that way. I've seen a few recently that are really engaging and it made me more likely to try chatting with more in the future.
@jessica_tedrick that’s encouraging; especially since we’ve all had sub par experiences with humans in these kind of interactions, would be great to see bots improve over time
Chat bots are cool for alexa like conversations. Where you want something to happen and given an input you get a relevant output. Like if I want to ask a question i.e "how many site visitors did I get today" and the response was my analytics in chat form then that is enjoyable IMO.
I think it depends on the context. I don't mind chatbots in onboarding (single time event). Beyond that, it just 'feels' too slow and ineffective.
@behzad_behrouzi Onboarding is such a great application for them. They can be ineffective. If they don't understand your question you can't just further explain it like you could to a person.
I mean, I don't _hate talking to people_, but I enjoy seeing how others build bots and leverage all the different capabilities. The more unique, the better!
The bot should have purpose, tho. And response times are critical - would expect it to have responses at the ready 24/7. At least for a "FAQ" type of interaction.
@ohdubz yes! I think they are best utilized as a customer service aid that can be there when the real live agents can't be or to help get customers to the right people. Being quick and available is key.
I don't mind either way - I particularly like testing my banter skills with the bot. I only get annoyed when I have a question the bot can't answer and there is no clear path to chatting to human who can help.
the bots i have had to deal with are very poor quality - the response are very generic.
I would say that I do not hate it; however, I would prefer to have managed live chat services where a real human interacts with me, not a machine. You can try something similar to what Chat Metrics(https://www.chatmetrics.com/) offers as they provide a team of real human agents who proactively engage with their website visitors to understand their requirements.
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