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Geez I guess no one bothered asking users if THEY like chatbots? IMO chatbots are the online equivalent of getting an automated response from a phone line. like

Geez I guess no one bothered asking users if THEY like chatbots? IMO chatbots are the online equivalent of getting an automated response from a phone line. like calling CVS pharmacy "press one" for pharmacy, etc... You get the point of it, but it's basically a tool that only benefits businesses because the user experience is very poor. I wonder why no one tries to make this whole bot thing have more of a personality? It seems so bland. If they modeled it after ONE person instead of using "data" to sound neutral, they would be more successful.

jsemrau 10y ago
>users if THEY like chatbots I certainly prefer chatbots over the menu selection when I call. But that's about it. Mose of the chatbots are similar rule based systems anyways.
olavgg 10y ago
Have you ever called support over phone and waited a long time for a simple question? Annoying, yes? A chatbot can often answer that simple question immediately. So yes, people do like chatbots as long they at least manage to get most of the simple questions right. For example in our case, clients often have problems logging in. With our chatbot they can easily get a one time password sent to their phone. With a regular search/faq they would have never known about that, because they are often too frustrated with the UI experience for finding that information. With a natural language conversation, it is easier :-)
- pricechild 10y ago
  Why not just send that OTP to their phone immediately if someone has trouble logging in?
- pbreit 10y ago
  Seems like you're not addressing the root problem.
- shriphani 10y ago
  can't a button saying "can't login" on your website solve this problem?
  - rlayton2 10y ago
    Yes, but how many buttons would you need to add?
    - sogen 10y ago
      Two buttons: 1.- Forgot password? 2.- Send
      - mcbits 10y ago
        Forgot password, send password, change password, change contact info, check warranty status, estimate next release date, download product manual, how to replace the battery, does the license allow commercial use?, which product is better for an apartment?, I'm looking for more information about your upcoming event in Tulsa - or was it Toledo?
        na85 10y ago
        Sounds like your site has poor navigability. I would be irate if all those things weren't available.
        mcbits 10y ago
        The problem is how best to expose those and 100,000 other potential buttons to the user who has better things to do than "navigate". An obvious solution is a search box, but most sites also have terrible search functionality, so users have learned to ignore it. For the rare gem that has useful search, dressing it up as a chatbot could get people to actually try it. Too bad it looks like a lot of devs are just dressing up their shitty search as chatbots, so users are being trained to ignore them as well.
  - olavgg 10y ago
- mattmanser 10y ago
  Forgotten password? links are a solved problem.
username223 10y ago
Just you wait. Chat-bots are currently at the level of a text-based adventure game combined with an arcade game, i.e. a primitive interface designed to minimize the player's (customer's) chance of winning (reaching a knowledgeable human). Just wait till they're fully gamified with a modern interface and an f2p revenue model.
- whatevorama 10y ago
  That is what I meant, yes this is the way. Creative and unexpected experiences.
- allpratik 10y ago
  What's f2p revenue model means? Is there any example /demo of gamified chatbot ?
  - username223 10y ago
    Not yet, but it's only a matter of time. Imagine every company's support being a version of Stack Overflow where you get points for answering other customers' questions (grinding), or by paying actual money, and can trade these points for time with knowledgeable, paid humans.
    - azinman2 10y ago
      Honestly that sounds horrible to me. I'd like to skip the whole point conversion and dealing with non-experts and just talk to a human that works at whatever company please.
    - sgt101 10y ago
      We tried this out years ago, the issue that we discovered was that humans are pretty good at working out when their efforts could be better directed at earning money rather than points. People will work to support a community, because they gain self actualisation from helping others and getting status from others. Some more "karma" can be generated from early access programs and expert feedback status on new products. That's all though - there is not an endless well of good will out there to be exploited by social media and bot infrastructures. People like real gold!
waffle_ss 10y ago
IIRC chatbots were an idea transplanted from success in China (WeChat), where users seem to like them. But of course users aren't fungible.
- donw 10y ago
  This has been my experience as well. Chatbots in China over WeChat act as a lightweight Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, which is highly successful due to a set of market factors which are (at least from my perspective) unique to China. But, as I've been saying for about a year now, chatbots, in their current incarnation, don't make a lot of sense outside that niche. Looking at it from either the American or Japanese perspective, there are a set of expected standards for customer support, which are either already met via web-based mostly-automated systems (Amazon is really good here), or by being able to directly chat with a human being (perhaps supplemented by AI) to solve a very specific and usually uncommon need. Replacing that setup with nothing but a text-based IVR system is a non-starter for any company that wants to remain in business.
  - omarchowdhury 10y ago
    What are those Chinese market factors?
    - puranjay 10y ago
      I reckon easier typing would be one of them. From what I've read, predictive text is much better in Chinese, as is voice recognition
    - BukhariH 10y ago
      Another factor in China is that people all ready use WeChat to make payments to each other (http://uk.businessinsider.com/wechats-p2p-usage-is-massive-2016-12 http://uk.businessinsider.com/wechats-p2p-usage-is-massive-2...). Hence, it was a natural progression to allow payments to businesses which is where chatbots came in.
  - RugnirViking 10y ago
pbreit 10y ago
My contention has always been that people prefer messaging primarily because there's a human on the other side.
- whatevorama 10y ago
  Totally. The problem is that a lot of "AI" discourse makes the automatic assumption that humans want to interact with quote-unquote "machines". Humans want better user experience and humans do a good job interacting with other humans:). What's missing in the ai-bot conversation is the spark of creativity. There is the assumption that "AI" alone will create value, when value creation happens when user experience is new and exciting. I am doing something like that myself as a side project, not exactly as "AI" more as voice interface responding to voice commands that uses humor and character voices to reply. In way, the problem of bots is actually "AI". You can create a more flexible and lively experience if you put "AI" aside and really think of how people interact and create responses that are not based on "mean" values, but on real conversations. You don't even need the whole AI backend, you can just use javascript, audio files with or without accompanying text. Because so much of the conversation is bland, having a "voice" will make a huge difference. AI developers should consider collaborating with writers and comedians:)
  - hectormalot 10y ago
    On that last point: the place I work actually hired copywriters and linguists to create more of a personality for our AI/bot. You're right that the typical chat is quite bland and feels scripted, but I think companies are picking up on this and are trying to improve on this.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Personally, I hate talking to random humans (I have friends, if I want to talk to someone). The only reason I ever do so, in the case bots are intended to serve, is if the company's website can't do what I want. Give me a good website that provides all of the stuff I might need to do when interacting with your company, and I will never ever ask to speak to a human. I've always felt like bots for use in customer service were trying to solve a problem by adding more problems. So, now, not only is someone talking at your company because they have a problem that couldn't easily be solved by your web presence, now you're making them navigate an uncanny valley of dumb questions and answers...following the same old support script only now with even less intelligence and autonomy on the part of the company rep.
vsloo 10y ago
There needs to be a right balance between bot and human. Personally, I think bots are a replacement for UI, not a replacement for real conversations. I want to use a bot when I activate a credit card for example. It's a glorified "activate" button in lieu of actual UI, but if I have fraud on my card, I want to talk to a human, because I want a conversation, not a substitute for a series of UI decisions. We're on track for developing an "assistant" bot of our own here at Reamaze. Our starting point for AI at Reamaze is a bot for assisting agents with responses, not customers.
hw 10y ago
Chatbots are great if they assist me with quick actions, like viewing my order/shipping status, and when it's obvious that I'm "talking" to a bot. What gets annoying are chatbots that start with "how can I help you?" and attempt to use natural language processing on my reply to guesstimate a response. More often than not I end up frustrated, wishing there was an 'Operator' button that I can use to talk with a real person. It's way easier and more comforting to be talking to a real person behind the business when I need something. It's distressing that more and more chatbots are spawned every day to take the human element out of customer support or when engaging with a business. Chatbots work when they're a complement to human customer support, but when they're up front and center they tend to be distracting, frustrating, and their attempts to act human often amuses me. I do like Kik's and Messenger's approach to a bot and I think they are on the right path.
- chinathrow 10y ago
  Why would I need a chatbot to view a shipping status? Online shops have usually a link where my orders are displayed and updated in real-time. Worked well.
  - hectormalot 10y ago
    It actually turns out that some non-technical people are more capable of navigating a conversation with a chatbot than the average website. Basically it solves the problem of finding your own information vs the chatbot finding the information for you. For example: we had a bot that could take care of HR, expense, and IT issues. So instead of having to look in one of the systems or the documents on SharePoint, you could just ask: "how many days of PTO do I have left?" Or "when will my last expense report be paid?" or "can I get email on my corporate phone?", and the bot would be able to handle it. Especially in larger companies with lots of systems finding that can be difficult. HN is probably not the intended audience for chatbots :) edit: typos
  - adrianratnapala 10y ago
    Well as everyone knows, ordinary users find CLIs easjer to use than GUIs! I am only half joking. The reason nerds like CLIs is that they can just tell the computer what to do without having to first coax it into offering the appropriate menu. The same is true for non-nerds, except they no one really wants to learn the exact commands. If for some reason, clicky-window GUIs had not been invented in the '80s -- then the hot thing in UI research might have been fuzzy, english-like text interfaces, including online help. That is basically what is being re-discovered via chatbot technology.
afro88 10y ago
> IMO chatbots are the online equivalent of getting an automated response from a phone line I agree, but that doesn't mean they're as bad as them. It's _much_ faster to read a text and reply with a word/number/tap than it is to wait for the option you want to be read out to you: "for x press 1, for y press 2... for z press 9". Or worse, have to speak what you want, wait for it to parse what you said, and then ask you to confirm.
- azinman2 10y ago
  Except, the phone tree isn't what's on the web. So really you're putting texting against a webpage or an app, which will always deliver a better ux because they're unconstrained.
- ipsi 10y ago
  They're also superior (and less stressful) for a certain type of person - for example, my mother appears to be slowing down a bit, mentally, as she gets older, and a chat bot would be a lot easier for her to navigate over a phone menu, because she has time to read it and think about it without feeling pressured to key in a response before the phone menu times out. And she doesn't have to worry about forgetting what the phone menu said because, hey, it's all on screen.
joesb 10y ago
It's visual voicemail equivalent of automated phone line.
scirocco 10y ago
Can someone explain to me how chatbots are taught? Can you give them a 1000 slide product guide about, let's say, Intel 2016 SSDs, and then throw a question like: Can you use Intel SSD model X23Y with DELL server XYZ?
- sgt101 10y ago
  Well - it's complicated. Have a look at Speakeasy for a bot that is trained on reddit using deep learning, it produces very plausible responses to queries but has a few weaknesses. Firstly it's not task directed, so if you ask it about changing the oil in a car it doesn't know any useful facts and it doesn't present them - it just fobs you off. Secondly, type "you're" into it - it will be very rude to you... because... reddit. So what's needed is something that can read technical documents and use them at the right time in a conversation. Deepdive (http://deepdive.stanford.edu/ http://deepdive.stanford.edu/) gives you a bit of this capability, but when I used it (version 0.4) I struggled, maybe things have improved! Non the less; I do believe that this is state of the art for machine reading. IBM did a tonne of work on question answering in Watson but I am now so confused about Watson that I literally don't know what to make of where their work has got to. Hope that helps, would be interested if there are different opinions out there!
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    On the other side too, many of the best chat bots are being built as essentially Expert Systems, rather than Deep Learning, and there's a lot of old research and ideas to dust off from that field. Right now a lot of the chat bot Expert Systems are ad hoc, from what I gather, and it will be interesting if there's a resurgence in exploring and modernizing a lot of the old ideas and classic systems. As with the brief flurry of the Semantic Web era, I think the lesson with chat bot VI/AI will again be as much in striking the balance between things like Deep Learning and things like Expert Systems, assuming Deep Learning will never be perfect and Expert Systems will never be easy/cheap (building a good one still requires a domain expert in that field to train it in whatever rules engine you are using to express the domain).
    - 10y ago
davidhariri 10y ago
I think companies are just beginning to learn how to do this in a way that benefits them and their customers (which is why I largely agree with the poor UX and blandness you're describing). I work at a company that's helping businesses automate parts of their customer support with chatbots and you'd be surprised to learn that CSAT improves when they employ some automation. Usually this means getting a quicker first response to the customer's question (and some of the time successfully answering it!) as well as automating tedious data collection (what device are you on? what's your email? etc.). It's early days for chatbots and I think we'll see a lot of improvement where automation through conversation should be and I think we'll also see the rest shake out. More to your point: I agree with you, IVRs are usually really bad, but some of them are impressive. Have you used Apple's recently? It's very good at routing and making cases where it's uncertain invisible.
drusepth 10y ago
>Geez I guess no one bothered asking users if THEY like chatbots? I think there's definitely two distinct types of people in this regard. Just like automated responses from phone lines, I much, much, much, much prefer "speaking" to a robot that: a) is often less stressful than speaking to a human b) is often able of hearing and understanding me better than a human c) is often more easy to understand than a human d) is often more straightforward to get help from e) is often "happier" to help f) is often much faster to interact with, especially in repeated tasks like paying bills, authorizing payments, etc And if you do need to speak to a human after all, they typically treat you better knowing you've already gone through the "easy stuff" and are seeking something extra. I'll regularly put off or completely avoid calling any companies (support, bills, etc) that don't have automated processes, and will just take my business elsewhere at the first opportunity. I wholeheartedly wish every line I had to call were automated, and extending the real-time support capabilities of online communication only makes quality support more ubiquitous and easier to get, IMO. -- I spent an hour on the phone with UPS support this morning (first their 1800 number, then their Reykjavik office, then one driver, then another driver, then the Reykjavik office again) that could have avoided a ton of back and forth and miscommunication if I'd just spoken to a bot in the first place that could take my request ("Hi, your online tracking says a package could not be delivered to my address because 'I moved', when in fact I did not. Please deliver it anyway.") and put it directly into a database available to the office/drivers.

jsemrau 10y ago

>users if THEY like chatbots I certainly prefer chatbots over the menu selection when I call. But that's about it. Mose of the chatbots are similar rule based systems anyways.

olavgg 10y ago

Have you ever called support over phone and waited a long time for a simple question? Annoying, yes? A chatbot can often answer that simple question immediately. So yes, people do like chatbots as long they at least manage to get most of the simple questions right. For example in our case, clients often have problems logging in. With our chatbot they can easily get a one time password sent to their phone. With a regular search/faq they would have never known about that, because they are often too frustrated with the UI experience for finding that information. With a natural language conversation, it is easier :-)

pricechild 10y ago
Why not just send that OTP to their phone immediately if someone has trouble logging in?
pbreit 10y ago
Seems like you're not addressing the root problem.
shriphani 10y ago
can't a button saying "can't login" on your website solve this problem?
- rlayton2 10y ago
  Yes, but how many buttons would you need to add?
  - sogen 10y ago
    Two buttons: 1.- Forgot password? 2.- Send
    - mcbits 10y ago
      Forgot password, send password, change password, change contact info, check warranty status, estimate next release date, download product manual, how to replace the battery, does the license allow commercial use?, which product is better for an apartment?, I'm looking for more information about your upcoming event in Tulsa - or was it Toledo?
      - na85 10y ago
        Sounds like your site has poor navigability. I would be irate if all those things weren't available.
        mcbits 10y ago
        The problem is how best to expose those and 100,000 other potential buttons to the user who has better things to do than "navigate". An obvious solution is a search box, but most sites also have terrible search functionality, so users have learned to ignore it. For the rare gem that has useful search, dressing it up as a chatbot could get people to actually try it. Too bad it looks like a lot of devs are just dressing up their shitty search as chatbots, so users are being trained to ignore them as well.
- olavgg 10y ago
mattmanser 10y ago
Forgotten password? links are a solved problem.

username223 10y ago

Just you wait. Chat-bots are currently at the level of a text-based adventure game combined with an arcade game, i.e. a primitive interface designed to minimize the player's (customer's) chance of winning (reaching a knowledgeable human). Just wait till they're fully gamified with a modern interface and an f2p revenue model.

whatevorama 10y ago
That is what I meant, yes this is the way. Creative and unexpected experiences.
allpratik 10y ago
What's f2p revenue model means? Is there any example /demo of gamified chatbot ?
- username223 10y ago
  Not yet, but it's only a matter of time. Imagine every company's support being a version of Stack Overflow where you get points for answering other customers' questions (grinding), or by paying actual money, and can trade these points for time with knowledgeable, paid humans.
  - azinman2 10y ago
    Honestly that sounds horrible to me. I'd like to skip the whole point conversion and dealing with non-experts and just talk to a human that works at whatever company please.
  - sgt101 10y ago
    We tried this out years ago, the issue that we discovered was that humans are pretty good at working out when their efforts could be better directed at earning money rather than points. People will work to support a community, because they gain self actualisation from helping others and getting status from others. Some more "karma" can be generated from early access programs and expert feedback status on new products. That's all though - there is not an endless well of good will out there to be exploited by social media and bot infrastructures. People like real gold!

waffle_ss 10y ago

IIRC chatbots were an idea transplanted from success in China (WeChat), where users seem to like them. But of course users aren't fungible.

donw 10y ago
This has been my experience as well. Chatbots in China over WeChat act as a lightweight Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, which is highly successful due to a set of market factors which are (at least from my perspective) unique to China. But, as I've been saying for about a year now, chatbots, in their current incarnation, don't make a lot of sense outside that niche. Looking at it from either the American or Japanese perspective, there are a set of expected standards for customer support, which are either already met via web-based mostly-automated systems (Amazon is really good here), or by being able to directly chat with a human being (perhaps supplemented by AI) to solve a very specific and usually uncommon need. Replacing that setup with nothing but a text-based IVR system is a non-starter for any company that wants to remain in business.
- omarchowdhury 10y ago
  What are those Chinese market factors?
  - puranjay 10y ago
    I reckon easier typing would be one of them. From what I've read, predictive text is much better in Chinese, as is voice recognition
  - BukhariH 10y ago
    Another factor in China is that people all ready use WeChat to make payments to each other (http://uk.businessinsider.com/wechats-p2p-usage-is-massive-2016-12 http://uk.businessinsider.com/wechats-p2p-usage-is-massive-2...). Hence, it was a natural progression to allow payments to businesses which is where chatbots came in.
- RugnirViking 10y ago

pbreit 10y ago

My contention has always been that people prefer messaging primarily because there's a human on the other side.

whatevorama 10y ago
Totally. The problem is that a lot of "AI" discourse makes the automatic assumption that humans want to interact with quote-unquote "machines". Humans want better user experience and humans do a good job interacting with other humans:). What's missing in the ai-bot conversation is the spark of creativity. There is the assumption that "AI" alone will create value, when value creation happens when user experience is new and exciting. I am doing something like that myself as a side project, not exactly as "AI" more as voice interface responding to voice commands that uses humor and character voices to reply. In way, the problem of bots is actually "AI". You can create a more flexible and lively experience if you put "AI" aside and really think of how people interact and create responses that are not based on "mean" values, but on real conversations. You don't even need the whole AI backend, you can just use javascript, audio files with or without accompanying text. Because so much of the conversation is bland, having a "voice" will make a huge difference. AI developers should consider collaborating with writers and comedians:)
- hectormalot 10y ago
  On that last point: the place I work actually hired copywriters and linguists to create more of a personality for our AI/bot. You're right that the typical chat is quite bland and feels scripted, but I think companies are picking up on this and are trying to improve on this.
SwellJoe 10y ago
Personally, I hate talking to random humans (I have friends, if I want to talk to someone). The only reason I ever do so, in the case bots are intended to serve, is if the company's website can't do what I want. Give me a good website that provides all of the stuff I might need to do when interacting with your company, and I will never ever ask to speak to a human. I've always felt like bots for use in customer service were trying to solve a problem by adding more problems. So, now, not only is someone talking at your company because they have a problem that couldn't easily be solved by your web presence, now you're making them navigate an uncanny valley of dumb questions and answers...following the same old support script only now with even less intelligence and autonomy on the part of the company rep.

vsloo 10y ago

There needs to be a right balance between bot and human. Personally, I think bots are a replacement for UI, not a replacement for real conversations. I want to use a bot when I activate a credit card for example. It's a glorified "activate" button in lieu of actual UI, but if I have fraud on my card, I want to talk to a human, because I want a conversation, not a substitute for a series of UI decisions. We're on track for developing an "assistant" bot of our own here at Reamaze. Our starting point for AI at Reamaze is a bot for assisting agents with responses, not customers.

hw 10y ago

Chatbots are great if they assist me with quick actions, like viewing my order/shipping status, and when it's obvious that I'm "talking" to a bot. What gets annoying are chatbots that start with "how can I help you?" and attempt to use natural language processing on my reply to guesstimate a response. More often than not I end up frustrated, wishing there was an 'Operator' button that I can use to talk with a real person. It's way easier and more comforting to be talking to a real person behind the business when I need something. It's distressing that more and more chatbots are spawned every day to take the human element out of customer support or when engaging with a business. Chatbots work when they're a complement to human customer support, but when they're up front and center they tend to be distracting, frustrating, and their attempts to act human often amuses me. I do like Kik's and Messenger's approach to a bot and I think they are on the right path.

chinathrow 10y ago
Why would I need a chatbot to view a shipping status? Online shops have usually a link where my orders are displayed and updated in real-time. Worked well.
- hectormalot 10y ago
  It actually turns out that some non-technical people are more capable of navigating a conversation with a chatbot than the average website. Basically it solves the problem of finding your own information vs the chatbot finding the information for you. For example: we had a bot that could take care of HR, expense, and IT issues. So instead of having to look in one of the systems or the documents on SharePoint, you could just ask: "how many days of PTO do I have left?" Or "when will my last expense report be paid?" or "can I get email on my corporate phone?", and the bot would be able to handle it. Especially in larger companies with lots of systems finding that can be difficult. HN is probably not the intended audience for chatbots :) edit: typos
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  Well as everyone knows, ordinary users find CLIs easjer to use than GUIs! I am only half joking. The reason nerds like CLIs is that they can just tell the computer what to do without having to first coax it into offering the appropriate menu. The same is true for non-nerds, except they no one really wants to learn the exact commands. If for some reason, clicky-window GUIs had not been invented in the '80s -- then the hot thing in UI research might have been fuzzy, english-like text interfaces, including online help. That is basically what is being re-discovered via chatbot technology.

afro88 10y ago

> IMO chatbots are the online equivalent of getting an automated response from a phone line I agree, but that doesn't mean they're as bad as them. It's _much_ faster to read a text and reply with a word/number/tap than it is to wait for the option you want to be read out to you: "for x press 1, for y press 2... for z press 9". Or worse, have to speak what you want, wait for it to parse what you said, and then ask you to confirm.

azinman2 10y ago
Except, the phone tree isn't what's on the web. So really you're putting texting against a webpage or an app, which will always deliver a better ux because they're unconstrained.
ipsi 10y ago
They're also superior (and less stressful) for a certain type of person - for example, my mother appears to be slowing down a bit, mentally, as she gets older, and a chat bot would be a lot easier for her to navigate over a phone menu, because she has time to read it and think about it without feeling pressured to key in a response before the phone menu times out. And she doesn't have to worry about forgetting what the phone menu said because, hey, it's all on screen.

joesb 10y ago

It's visual voicemail equivalent of automated phone line.

scirocco 10y ago

Can someone explain to me how chatbots are taught? Can you give them a 1000 slide product guide about, let's say, Intel 2016 SSDs, and then throw a question like: Can you use Intel SSD model X23Y with DELL server XYZ?

sgt101 10y ago
Well - it's complicated. Have a look at Speakeasy for a bot that is trained on reddit using deep learning, it produces very plausible responses to queries but has a few weaknesses. Firstly it's not task directed, so if you ask it about changing the oil in a car it doesn't know any useful facts and it doesn't present them - it just fobs you off. Secondly, type "you're" into it - it will be very rude to you... because... reddit. So what's needed is something that can read technical documents and use them at the right time in a conversation. Deepdive (http://deepdive.stanford.edu/ http://deepdive.stanford.edu/) gives you a bit of this capability, but when I used it (version 0.4) I struggled, maybe things have improved! Non the less; I do believe that this is state of the art for machine reading. IBM did a tonne of work on question answering in Watson but I am now so confused about Watson that I literally don't know what to make of where their work has got to. Hope that helps, would be interested if there are different opinions out there!
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  On the other side too, many of the best chat bots are being built as essentially Expert Systems, rather than Deep Learning, and there's a lot of old research and ideas to dust off from that field. Right now a lot of the chat bot Expert Systems are ad hoc, from what I gather, and it will be interesting if there's a resurgence in exploring and modernizing a lot of the old ideas and classic systems. As with the brief flurry of the Semantic Web era, I think the lesson with chat bot VI/AI will again be as much in striking the balance between things like Deep Learning and things like Expert Systems, assuming Deep Learning will never be perfect and Expert Systems will never be easy/cheap (building a good one still requires a domain expert in that field to train it in whatever rules engine you are using to express the domain).
  - 10y ago

davidhariri 10y ago

I think companies are just beginning to learn how to do this in a way that benefits them and their customers (which is why I largely agree with the poor UX and blandness you're describing). I work at a company that's helping businesses automate parts of their customer support with chatbots and you'd be surprised to learn that CSAT improves when they employ some automation. Usually this means getting a quicker first response to the customer's question (and some of the time successfully answering it!) as well as automating tedious data collection (what device are you on? what's your email? etc.). It's early days for chatbots and I think we'll see a lot of improvement where automation through conversation should be and I think we'll also see the rest shake out. More to your point: I agree with you, IVRs are usually really bad, but some of them are impressive. Have you used Apple's recently? It's very good at routing and making cases where it's uncertain invisible.

drusepth 10y ago

>Geez I guess no one bothered asking users if THEY like chatbots? I think there's definitely two distinct types of people in this regard. Just like automated responses from phone lines, I much, much, much, much prefer "speaking" to a robot that: a) is often less stressful than speaking to a human b) is often able of hearing and understanding me better than a human c) is often more easy to understand than a human d) is often more straightforward to get help from e) is often "happier" to help f) is often much faster to interact with, especially in repeated tasks like paying bills, authorizing payments, etc And if you do need to speak to a human after all, they typically treat you better knowing you've already gone through the "easy stuff" and are seeking something extra. I'll regularly put off or completely avoid calling any companies (support, bills, etc) that don't have automated processes, and will just take my business elsewhere at the first opportunity. I wholeheartedly wish every line I had to call were automated, and extending the real-time support capabilities of online communication only makes quality support more ubiquitous and easier to get, IMO. -- I spent an hour on the phone with UPS support this morning (first their 1800 number, then their Reykjavik office, then one driver, then another driver, then the Reykjavik office again) that could have avoided a ton of back and forth and miscommunication if I'd just spoken to a bot in the first place that could take my request ("Hi, your online tracking says a package could not be delivered to my address because 'I moved', when in fact I did not. Please deliver it anyway.") and put it directly into a database available to the office/drivers.