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My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

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Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#151

Post by tpxl »

dheera wrote: post #146
tpxl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No, I just block cookies from ALL sites except the few that I need to log into. GDPR is mostly irrelevant to me for that reason. GDPR is about a lot more than just cookies. >By blocking the modal dialog boxes, I never actually "accepted", and therefore they never got my permission to track. Ha! Unfortunately they probably treat this as if you accepted the modal (which is against GDPR).

> Unfortunately they probably treat this as if you accepted Sure, but they can't track me anyway :)

You seem to be mighty sure of that. What's the methods you use to stay anonymous?

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#152

Post by eloisius »

thrav wrote: post #147
eloisius wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you’ve got something down to muscle memory it really doesn’t matter how it works so long as it stays the same, I guess. I feel like these things are a speed bump when I run into them though. I recently canceled a my service with a utility. Instead of a simple form to select a date to shut off service, provide a new mailing address, and a submit button, I had to go through this artificial “dialog” with a robot. W…

As an example, I just needed the routing number for my account to make a payment. I was like, “shit, where is that in the app again”, but had just made this comment, so I hit help, and typed “routing number”, and it immediately responded with the routing number in big bold letters. ( https://imgur.com/a/raXEyO3 ) The point is to eliminate the need to work to find stuff.

And I just typed “USAA routing number” into google and got the same result. I’m not opposed to having searchable customer support for this kind of information, I just don’t like going through the clumsy dialog charade to accomplish common tasks that require input of data.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#153

Post by arcatech »

I created a slightly different kind of bot for my website (https://dwayne.xyz/utils/bot). It started as a bot for Twitch (Twitch bots usually only respond to a list of commands that start with !) and then I started to add it to other parts of my site. First, into my IRC server, then into the 1 on 1 (+1?) video/text chat rooms I added.

The base commands are things like !help, !about, !coin (simulates a coin toss), and then I added a little NLP on top to translate to one of those commands. I feel like that works a lot better than a general conversational bot that most likely isn't gonna respond in meaningful ways to most queries.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#154

Post by 7786655 »

gmueckl wrote: post #38
BeniBoy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminded me of this experiment [1]. Augment your CTR with simulated mouse cursor /s. But yes, the home page is unusable for me too.. [1]: https://javier.xyz/control-user-cursor/

I can barely fathom that allowing this has even crossed browser developer's minds. This feature is just evil from the start and every browser feature, no matter how trivial or benign will eventually be abused.

This page works by hiding the mouse cursor and displaying an image that looks like it. So it's not like the browser developers deliberately added a feature to make this possible.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#155

Post by eabraham »

dheera wrote: post #8

I absolutely despise those pop-up "Can I help you" boxes on product websites (usually Intercom). It completely disrupts my flow as a reader in trying to understand the product. That attention disruption got so bad I blocked Intercom and their ilk via injected CSS rules. I really want to take it a step further and write a plug in to interface a chat bot with the human on the other end and waste their time so sites beg…

I think part of the problem is that you are not the target audience of the chatbot. For the past year, I've run Intercom on a small saas app (https://www.delayforreddit.com) and I get great feedback from end-users. They love to be able to reach out to me on any page rather than hunting for a support email. A large component of the problem is that many sites overuse Intercom and don't realize how it impacts their end user experience.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#157

Post by PeterisP »

zeepzeep wrote: post #67
febin wrote: post #66

I am an engineer at a profitable chatbot company (HelloTars). I can't entirely agree with the points mentioned in this article. Yes, a chatbot is not ready to replace human support. However, there are other areas where they show good results. We have been helping customers with lead generation chatbots for the last four years. What we have learnt is customers would instead engage with a chatbot than filling up length…

> To summarize, no chatbots are not dead. They are only beginning. Yes, there will likely be more chatbots in the future. And yes, THEN they will be usable. But no, it's not a good user experience yet. If a website needs a chatbot they: - Didn't put enough effort in organizing the website - Don't want to spend money on real support - Hate their customers

The thing is, if you look at the stats for questions of real support, the vast majority of those questions are things that did not ever need "real support" - no matter how much or little support you're offering, half or more of the questions they get can be answered even by a "bot" that simply enters your query in a search engine and returns the first answer.

So there is always the temptation to save costs of your support with a pre-filter, so that your support can talk to people who actually have a question or problem that needs to be talked about.

It's the equivalent of "have you tried turning it off and on again?". This question must be asked, because it actually resolves a substantial portion of the issues - but it does seem quite wasteful to employ people to whom 30% of the calls ends with asking that question. Or, for other scenarios, reading verbatim one of the top answers from your FAQ page.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#158

Post by nullIsAnObject »

The biggest problem with chatbots is that getting conversations right is hard... and expensive. To make one actually helpful, it requires extensive knowledge not just about the potential topics that customers could ask about, but also linguistics, NLU/P/Q, scripting, and the diverse technical environments that these tools will be interacting with. With all the drag-and-drop chatbot creation tools out there now, companies are being sold on the idea that ANYONE can make these chats, and as such don't see the benefit of hiring an experienced professional whose sole job it is to make these things work well. Instead, their creation is being left to existing help desk/HR/doc employees that lack said in-depth cross-functional knowledge, with predictable results. Sparse NLU models are poorly constructed, background tasks are hacky and frequently broken, and the resulting chats are stilted and disjointed at best. Which is why they're so frustrating.

The tools to make good chatbots are complex, but they exist, and in the hands of someone who is trained in all of the requisite areas can be wielded to create something useful. It just costs money most companies don't believe is worth spending.

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#159

Post by d0mine »

kdtop wrote: post #90

The problem with chatbots is one of an unfulfilled promise, an unrealistic setting of user expectations. An empty Google search window doesn't pretend to be a human being -- although it is actually very powerful. Clippy, on the other hand, has a human face and pretends to be an intelligent agent, only to fail. So chatbots, when seeming to act like a human via natural language, are held in the user's mind to a higher…

I find chatbots helpful for language learning e.g., grammar bot in Memrise

Re: My chatbot is dead – Why yours should probably be too

#160

Post by _5659 »

arunaugustine wrote: post #143
_5659 wrote: post #71

My favorite chatbot experience lately has been support directing me to the chatbot, which then informs me that I am capable of resolving the issue of cancelling/refunding or making changes to my transaction. It just happens to be the case, that I ordered the wrong thing. Simple as that. As I travel to the appropriate link, there is none such ability or option. I relay the appropriate message to their customer service…

Can you please elaborate on Salesforce one-reply system? Never have used them but keen to understand how they do it better

They basically just force you to work within the pipeline of one-reply-per-person when following up on a customer in their CRM. Simple as that.
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