Chatbots Transforming Consumer Support

Consumer Support automation is a niche in the market that chatbots are rapidly filling more especially in major chat products such as Facebook Messenger. In layman's terms you can now shop online with assistance from a chatbot as you communicate what you are looking for (Schlicht, 2016).

Schlicht describes a chatbot as a service that can live on a major chat product and can be powered by rules or AI through machine learning as an example. It mimics human conversation to provide customer services.

I took the liberty to test one myself; a chatbot for Fandango on Facebook Messenger. Kajabi (2018) explains how Fandango is an app you can download to watch trailers, read reviews of recently released films, and interact with other people who love motion pictures. The chatbot on Facebook Messenger allows users to do some of those things without leaving Facebook.

Below is a screenshot of my experience with the chatbot:

Rathinam (2018) invokes that one of the greatest disadvantages of chatbots is that they are expensive to integrate as they must integrate with existing software to function. Aside from this drawback they lower the cost of having actual humans interact with consumers.

He also mentions how chatbots are not entirely efficient because they lack the contextual knowledge to effectively account for all the complexities of language and will therefore require more advanced AI to iron out their inefficiencies.

It seems that current chatbots are only good for the basic queries for a business. You may still need to call the Customer Helpdesk for the more advanced queries. But this is where chatbots have room to thrive as AI also advances. 

Niko Bonatsos has said that "~90% of our time on mobile is spent on email and messaging platforms. I would love to back teams that build stuff for places where the consumers hang out!” —  Managing Director at General Catalyst

Hence chatbots are truly a niche market and we can expect to see growth in their development in the near future.

References:

1.  Schlicht, M. (2016) The Complete Beginner's Guide to Chatbots [online] Available from: https://chatbotsmagazine.com/the-complete-beginner-s-guide-to-chatbots-8280b7b906ca [Accessed on 20 November 2018]
2. Kajabi (2018) 20 Examples of Facebook Messenger Chatbots to Inspire You in 2018 [online] Available from: https://blog.newkajabi.com/chatbot-examples [Accessed 20 November 2018]
3. Rathinam,  P.(2018) AI 101: The Basics of Automation for Customer Support [online] Available from: http://customerthink.com/ai-101-the-basics-of-automation-for-customer-support/ [Accessed 20 November 2018]