Published on the 27/05/2019 | Written by Heather Wright

Chatbots still just too dumb to do the job effectively…

If you’re looking to implement chatbots, you might want to hit pause and consider a new survey which suggests businesses’ love of chatbots might be out of touch with consumers desires, at least for now.

While artificial intelligence and automation are increasingly becoming part of consumers’ interactions with organisations, the Pegasystems survey of more than 1,000 Australian’s suggests automated chatbots aren’t meeting the service levels customers expect with 73 percent of respondents preferring to interact with humans.

The survey shows Australian’s are only comfortable using automation for simple tasks such as ordering takeaway food or booking a taxi, reflecting a significant gap between customer expectations and service experience – and highlighting the need for improved understanding of customer needs and better use of technologies to deliver improved customer experience.

Both human customer service and speed were deemed to be the most important element of personalised customer services

Analysts have forecast a significant increase in the use of chatbots over the coming year.  Gartner has forecast that 25 percent of customer service and support operations will integrate ‘virtual customer assistant’ (VCA) or chatbot technology across engagement channels by 2020, up from less than two percent in 2017.

The analyst firm says organisations report a reduction of up to 70 percent in call, chat and/or email inquiries after implementing a VCA, with increased customer satisfaction and a 33 percent saving per voice engagement also noted.

But the Australian report casts shade on the rush to implement chatbots. It echoes global survey results which noted that most chatbots are still just too dumb to get the job done.

“Currently, most chatbots are programmed to follow predetermined conversational flows – thus limiting their usefulness for solving complex problems or picking up conversational subtleties.”

That survey of 3,500 global consumers found 65 percent of consumers, while acknowledging that chatbots can be fast and convenient in some situations, still preferred a human agent. Fifty-eight percent rated their chatbot experiences as merely ‘adequate’, with 18 percent saying chatbots were ineffective or even annoying. Just 16 percent felt they’d had a high quality experience with a chatbot.

Customers tended to favour chatbots for only the simplest queries, such as tracking an order (60 percent), finding basic information (53 percent) and asking basic questions (49 percent).

Australian’s too, are relegating chatbot use for the simplest of actions, with only 35 percent of us wanting human interaction when ordering food and just 26 percent wanting to talk to a human to book a taxi.

For anything more complicated, such as making complaints (63 percent), getting mortgages (54 percent) and buying insurance (48 percent) we’re seeking the human touch, rather than automated services

Both human customer service and speed were deemed to be the most important element of personalised customer services, with waiting a long time to speak to customer service reps and having to repeat ourselves to multiple service reps the main bugbears.

Luke McCormack, vice president and managing director, APAC for the CRM and digital process automation provider, says with the recent events of bad customer experience still fresh in Australian consumers’ minds, brands need to demonstrate the true power of automation to improve the customer journey.

Interestingly, despite recent issues with the Royal Banking Commission, banks are still commanding the most trust when it comes to safeguarding personal information, with 62 percent of Australian’s trusting them with their data. Government ranked second at 57 percent, then it was a big drop to the next tier of insurers (33 percent), online communications providers (31 percent) and telco providers (27 percent).

So, if you want to embrace the chatbot workforce, what should you be doing?

According to PegaSystems, there are five key steps to setting your company up for chatbot success:

Ask first if the task be automated – can a bot enhance the overall experience?

Be the bot – Put yourself in the shoes of your customer to ensure realistic expectations are being set – and met.

Know your audience – What channels are customers using? What’s happening in a channel when a customer tries to reach you? Are you not available on some channels customers want?

Start simple – Focus on one task, and one channel, at a time.

Don’t create another silo – Make sure it feels seamless to users navigating across channels by providing a ‘channel-less’ experience.