Everyone is discussing the rise of chatbots, but they seem to be forgetting that humans are also quite competent.
If the future Facebook and others are predicting comes to fruition, individuals may prefer to communicate with bots over actual people.
One of two topics dominates the buzz surrounding bots:
A new distribution route is offered by bots. Since we have all known for some time that apps and app stores are going away, many people have begun to ally themselves with the new bot and message distribution paradigm. Instead of developing an app, focus on building a bot.
We can cut out pricey humans from client interactions by using bots. Many believe that humans have been eliminated in our new world of bots.
These two ways of thinking are incredibly narrow-minded and self-serving. As evidenced by Google’s new streaming apps, bots on messaging networks are just one possible new channel of dissemination.
Second, you’ll find out very soon that most customers, the folks who are supposed to be buying from all these new bots, actually prefer speaking to people. How often have you spoken to a voice system only to feel compelled to speak to a live person?
Humans and robots excel at various skills differently.
We must comprehend what bots are, as well as their advantages and disadvantages when compared to other approaches, in order to fully grasp their potential. Contacting people directly is one of those other methods. As we’ll see in a moment, human communication is a powerful enemy.
Let’s first take a crucial step back. A bot is a straightforward computer programme that executes commands based on input. A bot that resides inside a conversation product, such as a messaging app, is referred to as a chatbot. When people talk about bots, they really mean chatbots because messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger have such a large user base (900 million and counting).
Therefore, if a chatbot is being hailed as the next significant technological advance, it is important to understand how it functions in comparison to the human-to-human communication that now exists in chat programmes. What then, are the strengths of humans and computers?
Computing on computers is incredible. They can quickly find the best solution after searching through millions of fact-based options, calculating numbers, and more. Computers still struggle to comprehend human emotion. Nowhere near. They can’t even grasp what we are asking them due to the limitations of natural language processing, let alone try to infer our feelings from the context. Computers won’t be able to accurately read human emotion in conversation for at least another ten years, if not much longer.
Humans, on the other hand, are exceptional at comprehending human emotion but not so good at calculating. We can empathize. We are skilled at getting people to enjoy something before falling in love with it. We are familiar with how frustrating it is. We understand what it’s like to go above and above to cheer people up. We are rational. We can hear. We are aware of when to be quiet and when to speak up. Without empathy and emotional intelligence, customer service and marketing cannot be effectively delivered. World-class customer communications will continue to require humans for the foreseeable future.
People enjoy conversing with other people.
All of this prompts me to pose the most crucial query of them all: do customers genuinely want to communicate with bots? I believe they might in the clearly defined win-win conditions I mentioned above. However, I believe that the future that Facebook is pointing toward has the lowest chance of materializing.
Facebook wants to make the difference between speaking to a human and a robot imperceptible. But people enjoy engaging in conversation. And if there is anything wrong with today’s customer communication, it is how impersonal online commerce is. Bad technology, such as do-not-reply email, ticket numbers, automated responses, and nameless “contact us” forms, is used by companies to conceal their activities.
You can choose from a variety of persons when you enter a store to ask for assistance. There are no people to be found anywhere when you launch your favorite apps. It is impersonal to pose as a human when using a bot. How do you think users would feel if they are having a discussion with a bot when they realize it is actually a person due to inescapable technical limitations? And how could that attitude possibly be advantageous to business?
Bots will enhance human-to-human communication. They will support basic inquiries with positive outcomes. But fortunately for everyone, they won’t be taking the place of people anytime soon.
You may begin right now if, like us, you’re eager to learn how chatbots might expand your company.
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