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Chatbots Don't Deliver Good Customer Service

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Re: Chatbots Don't Deliver Good Customer Service

#11

Post by epicide »

michaelt wrote: post #5
throwaway2016a wrote: post #3

Yet. Chat bots don't deliver good customer service yet. They will get better and eventually get better than humans. It's a new use of technology, give it time to improve. I already know of companies using AI to adapt to customers like this article says chat bots don't do. It's cutting edge but it is out there.

Maybe. But in that time the early adopters' reputations will be in the gutter because chatbots are the worst customer support out there.

I don't think it's a high risk for their reputation, though. Compared to other forms of support, it is still better.

I'd rather talk to a chatbot than:

- the same (or worse) bot over a phone

- someone who only vaguely speaks my language

- nothing/nobody at all

- someone who speaks my language but spends 10 minutes and 30 "thank you"s to tell me they can't accomplish what I need

The only form that wins out is a living person who is well-trained and speaks my language well. Most companies already won't provide that.

Re: Chatbots Don't Deliver Good Customer Service

#12

Post by mannykannot »

deegles wrote: post #4

I develop Alexa skills and I agree with the article. Another point that is missing is that the technology hasn't "closed the loop". We have great ASR and NLU available, but responses still need to be built by hand or templated. This is the major reason bots feel so unnatural. I think there's a lot of opportunity for robust Natural Language Generation solutions to help build voice apps and chat bots that can operate m…

In my experience, the major reason bots feel unnatural is that they quickly reveal their lack of actual understanding of anything, with the mean time to Turing-test failure being not much longer than the preliminaries (such as getting your account #.)

Actually, maybe 'unnatural' is not the quite right word, as I have had some human customer service that is no better in this regard (or perhaps they were actually some of the better chatbots?)

Re: Chatbots Don't Deliver Good Customer Service

#14

Post by ronack »

These are pretty well-worn arguments against chatbots. There's an overuse of bots for tasks that do not benefit from a conversational interface (checking the weather, surveys, promotions, etc.). But if you stop thinking of bots as sentient beings and instead treat them as domain-specific command line interfaces, you may get more utility out of them. For instance, it's possible just typing/saying "Send me a pizza with sausage and black olives" is the most efficient way to order a pizza.

Re: Chatbots Don't Deliver Good Customer Service

#15

Post by Cumulonimbus »

deegles wrote: post #4

I develop Alexa skills and I agree with the article. Another point that is missing is that the technology hasn't "closed the loop". We have great ASR and NLU available, but responses still need to be built by hand or templated. This is the major reason bots feel so unnatural. I think there's a lot of opportunity for robust Natural Language Generation solutions to help build voice apps and chat bots that can operate m…

I would also posit, that the chatbots are not armed with the ability to actually solve problems.

I'd use a chatbot, if it could understand that X is a fraudulent transaction, and to have it cancelled. Instead I get , "Would you like to return your item?" -- NO, it's fraud.

It seems either the engineers responsible, or the upper management have made it an order to not allow higher functioning bots. Im guessing they're using the bots as yet another layer of obfuscation to get people to go away, just as companies used "longer than expected" delays on phone lines to get people to leave.

Re: Chatbots Don't Deliver Good Customer Service

#16

Post by freehunter »

I run a Facebook page, and they've recently started pushing chats through Messenger every time you post something asking you to spend money to boost the post. Every single time. And if you do boost, they'll beg you to boost again through Messenger. I tried "stop", I tried "cancel", I tried "unsubscribe", and I even tried cursing at it to see if it would stop. It didn't. Eventually I had to go into Messenger settings and block Facebook's chatbot. I reported it as spam, since there's no way to make it stop bothering you.

And now I see they're automatically opening Messenger when you visit someone's page to get you to message that business for... I'm not exactly sure what reason.

Re: Chatbots Don't Deliver Good Customer Service

#18

Post by michaelt »

epicide wrote: post #11
michaelt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But in that time the early adopters' reputations will be in the gutter because chatbots are the worst customer support out there.

I don't think it's a high risk for their reputation, though. Compared to other forms of support, it is still better. I'd rather talk to a chatbot than: - the same (or worse) bot over a phone - someone who only vaguely speaks my language - nothing/nobody at all - someone who speaks my language but spends 10 minutes and 30 "thank you"s to tell me they can't accomplish what I need The only form that wins out is a living…

Personally, if a company can't provide support where you speak to a human, I'd prefer that they be honest about that - rather than having my hopes raised then dashed and my time wasted by a chat/phone/e-mail contact that doesn't go to a human.

Re: Chatbots Don't Deliver Good Customer Service

#19

Post by tyingq »

olavgg wrote: post #13

Chatbots do work, those who say it doesn't work have just tried the really bad ones. Examples of chatbots that do work Nuance's Nina https://www.windstream.com/Support/ Jenn (unknown who is behind it) https://www.alaskaair.com/ Our James https://master.boost.ai/

>Jenn (unknown who is behind it)

If you meant who built it... http://nextit.com/work/alaska-airlines

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