Do we need to pump the brakes on chatbots?

In the last decade, chat has become the most popular platform for customer and technical support. Support is a huge cost for business. With the hype around Artificial Intelligence and deep learning, there’s a lot of excitement about the possibility of replacing live support with chatbots. But a deeper look shows the technology has a long way to go.

Text by France Baril

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Do we need to pump the brakes on chatbots?

Technical communicators, especially those who work with structured content or other tools that support multi-channel publishing, can play a big role in providing high-quality content for chatbots to draw answers from. But before we jump headlong into the wonderful world of chatbots, it's important to take a step back. We need to understand two aspects of this technology in order to proceed successfully: Why people love live chat, and how chatbot support fits into their experience as a whole.

Live chat is well-loved

The following stats show clearly that live chat is growing in popularity and adoption:

  • Chat adoption rates have risen from 38 percent in 2009 to 58 percent in 2014, which is a compound annual growth rate of 8.8 percent over that time. (Forrester)
  • 53 percent of customers would prefer to use online chat before calling a company for support. (Harris Research)
  • Chat has ...