According to studies, customers are not comfortable dealing with chatbots and still prefer dealing with actual persons in addressing their concerns.
However, due to the fast pace in the operations of retail sector, businesses are starting to refocus man power to more complex jobs and let robots do the other simple and repetitive work.
This led to robots making their way to customer support; interacting with consumers who have concerns. It continued with the development of messaging chatbots which are employed though only for a very limited amount of basic customer service engagement.
Chatbots saves the expenses and cuts the need for additional manpower. Plus, it also promises faster response rate which could go round the clock. It is undeniable that at some point, customer service management can be managed by bots because responses can be programmed and answers to frequently asked questions can just be recorded and used automatically when needed. This makes the process faster and simpler without needing someone to monitor it and handle it. Another problem with people managing customer service is that, they might still have errors in handling the concerns. There is still a possibility of not being able to assist customers on the right process. At least, with bots, errors (if there are) can easily be traceable and it can be corrected in an instant.
But, what makes customer reject extensive chatbot engagement?
Studies and reports showed us that indeed, most customers would rather speak to human in a customer service scenario. While, others revealed that some would rather not contact the brand than deal with the chatbots of the company. This proves that people would still stick with the traditional means and ways of customer service management.
Some of the main reasons include lack of sympathy and consumer comfort. While some say that they are not confident that the bots would be able to help them with their concerns.
At this point, we cannot blame the customers because this is something that is different from what they are used to. Plus, not all of us can understand how chatbots are programmed. The same they won’t always fully understand how we humans communicate. We have a very complex nature of interaction with each other also because of our high level of intelligence.
This shows us that the need for chatbots is just minimal or only in moderation. After all, we cannot shove it down everyone’s throats. So, even though technology has given us this capability, it doesn’t mean that we can instantly inject it to our ways of life. The use of chatbots in customer engagement should still be studied thoroughly as it can have a huge impact as to how customers will perceive a brand.
Only time can tell when this advanced level of technology will be accepted with open arms and integrated fully to our businesses.