Chatbots: Help or Hindrance?

Chatbot: A computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet.

With technology becoming increasingly more entwined with modern life, Siri and friends available in our phones, Google Assistant and Alexa full-time residents within our homes, where do the Program Powered Assistants that are Chatbots fit into the picture? Are these virtual chat assistants a help or hindrance?

For those of you that are not familiar, Chatbots are programed assistants that you can find on websites or controlling company inboxes on platforms like Twitter or Facebook Messenger. Driven by sets of rules that point users in the direction of Y when they select X, bots are capable of holding automated chats and performing tasks such as assisting with booking requests and answering FAQ’s. 

With Facebook reporting 1.3 billion users of Messenger, and 20 billion messages between people and businesses exchanged every month, an increasing amount of companies are adopting artificial counterparts to be their first line of enquiry. So whether you are perusing an online retailer, exploring new sounds on Spotify or tapping up Pizza hut to place an order, a Chatbot can usually be found occupying their inbox.

Heading up marketing can see myself trialling various software and technology, so I jumped on the robotic bandwagon and explored what Bots can do for us at FTS. After some brief exploration of offered templates and ‘flows', I created and implemented a simple Chatbot to take up residency in our Facebook inbox. Programmed to welcome visitors and point them in the direction of job openings and FAQs, my artificial companion was basic yet useable.

After deploying our Bot, I realised that what I had created in essence was going to be the first impression of FTS via Facebook. Although nifty software can appear personal, how do people feel having human interaction replaced?

I wanted to gather the opinions of the LinkedIn audience on bots; are they as good as talking to a human, or are these linear counterparts only slight in comparison to talking to a real person?

This has then lead me to the following questions:

-         Do people actively engage with a Chatbot?

-         Are you happy receiving an automated response to your message or would you rather call a business and speak to a human?

-         If you had the option to have your question answered by a bot, would you talk to them, or hunt out the ‘Contact Us’ page and call the business, which may take longer?

-         What impression of the business do you get, if your first point of contact with them is a Chatbot?

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please feel free to share any experiences of Chatbots that you have had in the comment section below.