How to Avoid Backlash Against Chatbots

Josefine Fourage of Nuance talks through the key things to ensure that chatbots are helping you to achieve better customer service.

This is going to sound ironic coming from a “chatbot” vendor, but get ready for a chatbot backlash in 2019. Yes, you heard correctly.

Forrester Research predicted in their report, Predictions 2019: Customer Service and Sales, that customers will lead a community-based revolt against corporate chatbots in 2019. Meaning customers will do whatever it takes for a brand to give them a human being to talk to. What’s the lesson here? People want to talk to humans because their experiences with chatbots have not been pleasant.

This unpleasantness can be due to a number of reasons, all of which are the result of chatbot implementation missteps. In most cases, the reasons chatbots fail is that organisations have overlooked one or more of these critical areas:

• Their business objectives
• The science of customer interaction
• The nuances of language
• How to handle hard-to-answer questions
• Branding the chatbot
• The ability for the chatbot to learn and grow

So why are we pointing out this doom and gloom? Because it doesn’t have to be that way.

If a chatbot or virtual assistant deployment is properly done with the right kind of help, the chatbot can have a very bright future. They will be able to ask the right questions, interpret inquiries accurately, and learn as they go for continuous improvement. They’ll also be able to work hand-in-hand with live agents as they share information and learn from each other.

A chatbot done right will satisfy the self-service needs of today’s customers yet make it easy to connect them with the human touch. Not only that, but they’ll help the business to meet their goals of efficiency and cost-savings.

So predictions of a chatbot backlash shouldn’t scare you – as long as you know what to do.

Soon your chatbot’s future will look brighter than ever.

Author: Guest Author