What's the one thing you dislike about chatbots?

Krupa Bhagat
43 replies
For me, it's the generic answers. If I'm using online chat on my University's Library page it gives me extremely generic answers which don't lead anywhere or help with the problem.

Replies

Cica-Laure Mbappé
I use an app to plan my wedding, and the bot keeps on sending me the same message every day, even if I disable it or answer that I don't need help, it comes back every time I log in. The bot automation spams the user experience and needs to be implemented carefully.
Ram
@cica_laure_mbappe How true...its a wedding, an experience. I wish there were more human interactions delivering these experiences. They might make it a bit more fun and help realize value, than these intrusive chatbots
Ram
@krupa_bhagat Chatbots are great to enable content discovery ... Chatbots initiated automatically, later manned by people behind help move the conversation forward. But chatbots fail when the product is a experience one and the chatbot becomes an additional layer of impersonal interaction .. some top of mind thoughts!
Manuel
@krupa_bhagat @srama79 Tottally agree. At current technology stage, best chatbots are the ones that are monitored and that a human takes over when the chatbot does not understands
Sydney Cohen
this is a discussion where @bastien_botella1 should take part !
Bastien Botella
@chnsydney Thanks for pinging me @chnsydney, this is an interesting conversation, looking forward to finding out what people don't like about chatbots :3
Krupa Bhagat
@bastien_botella1 @chnsydney Hey! I've never found chatbots helpful if I'm trying to navigate through a site to find specific content. The chatbots that are monitored are still better as an actual person takes over at some point.
Bastien Botella
@chnsydney @krupa_bhagat Well to be honest, chatbots are like pretty much any other interfaces, they can be very useful in some situations, and absolutely useless in others. For instance, my company (Clevy.io) sells chatbots to large companies for internal use, these chatbots answer generic questions and people gain time because they don't need to search through endless faq to find informations abd get it from the chatbot 90% of the time. On the other hand there are a bunch of chabots we refuse to develop as we know they wouldn't be great and it'd be frustrating for the user down the line. Also, while giving a personality to a chatbot is imo a good practice, it is quite a bad idea to get the chatbot to pretend it's a human, because it is not. People tend to forget that chatbots exist for very specific use cases and are not meant to replace websites, they're just an other interface that sometimes is suitable to a usage, sometimes is not.
Krupa Bhagat
@chnsydney @bastien_botella1 Thanks for your response. I totally agree with you. Chatbots can be very useful in certain situations as you mentioned. I guess it also depends on how it has been made to function on different sites.
Ram
@chnsydney @krupa_bhagat @bastien_botella1 Great thoughts @bastien_botella1 .. Chatbots that make it easy to discover codified content serve a big value, in helping make discovery in complex site easier. I see chatbots as a panacea ... a way to answer all questions today, which we hope to change in the future...
Uku Kudu
They pretend that they are humans
Arko Ganguli
the typical user experience of a chatbot is a popup, which is extremely annoying to say the list. More often than not I close the website with an intrusive chat bot functionality
Krupa Bhagat
@arko_ganguli1 Intrusive chatbots are the worst. They tend to be quite distracting if you are reading through some content.
Alex Freas
Honestly, the generic nature of the chatbot is annoying. They should be more purpose-built, because I don't think the AI is really good enough yet for a generic solution that replaces a human.
Bastien Botella
@sashimiblade I couldn't agree more, we often tend to forget that technology is meant to serve a purpose rather than itself
Danilo Diniz
When the option I need is "hidden" behind multiple replies. I like when I can simply type what I need and it gives me what I'm looking for.
Farabe Ahamed
That they are not humans but pretending as they are & chatbots are stupid
Amit yadav
They keep popping up even when I don't need help.
Edita Dermontaité
It takes ages to get to what you need, I always look for a "hidden" option that says "talk to a real person"
Krupa Bhagat
@edita Even the 'talk to a real person' option takes forever. The standard response times on these chatbots are not quick enough to solve an end-users queries.
Toon Lambrecht
@edita 100%, there should be a visible option to talk to a real person.
Ram
I thought I was crazy when I felt talking to people, and closing a conversation in 5 mins, is easier than the many queries that I need to answer before even a real person pops-up ... I wish websites understand human behavior better. If someone is staying on your website for a few minutes, is engaged, but is not converting, isnt it a state of intent, that needs to converted? .. I wish there was a popup at that point, giving me the option to audio/video chat with a real person who can help close it for me..
Artem Khromov
They forget context of your conversation after, lets say 2 or 4 replies You can't reference what you've already said – only type it once again
Krupa Bhagat
@artkhromov food delivery apps using chatbots is where I've faced this issue the most. You literally have to explain an issue multiple times. Even the customer support agent behind the bot keeps switching and you have to explain the issue to a new agent all over again.
Artem Khromov
@krupa_bhagat agree, and it's hard to tell whether they're humans themselves or another, fancier bots (support agents)
Hosea Elkin
Some can be really unhelpful and time wasting
Katy Hardt
When they are simple but still pretend to be a human. I'd rather just have it be obvious that it's a bot!
Akash
It has to be the loop they keep the user in, no matter what your actual query is. Since they are trained to observe keywords and come up with Knowledge base. But most times, a quick access to support team helps to save a lot of time
Krupa Bhagat
@akash_ambade1 I agree with you! A quick access to the support team is honestly the easiest way to solve a query.
Natalie Karakina
@krupa_bhagat sometimes you have to repeat your request again and again without any results at the end. But they are fast, and it's a big plus 😎
Mistreanu Ionut
Too much friction when communicating with them and looking for an answer.
Ram
@krupa_bhagat Yup, wish we had a way to connect customers directly to support representatives over 1-way video, where we can get a conversation closed in no time. @ Gumstack we are looking to solve for this issue, by allowing companies to bring up 1-click video, based on where they are in the customer journey and route these calls appropriately. Let us say, you have premium customers, above a particular revenue threshold. You would want to deliver hypercare to them. We can help bring up a 1-click video connect, solving issues easily, delivering much needed customer delight
Juliana Alvarez
Very interesting to read ... thanks for sharing all this info!