A client who HATES their existing live chat function, LOVED the prototype “alt-chat*” I built! My “alt-chat” is an asynchronous self-service help/support wizard.
I admit there may be others on the internet, but I’ve never seen one because I no longer click Chat buttons.
Because the chat NEVER works. 😒
- There is no human on the other end, ever. 🙋♀️
- It asks you what you want, and then doesn’t listen. 👂
- It’s a keyword search, without Google’s vocab. 🔎
- Lately it’s AI, 👾 which gives random ChatGPT answers.
- Eventually it asks me to fill in a form (that adds me to a mailing list).
Why do chatbots fail?
- People expect a chatbot to be live. A human. An AI generated response is going to annoy them.
- People are often impatient before they start typing to a chatbot.
- Language is nuanced. Typing is slow, so the user doesn’t give the enough “hints”.
- If you use AI, it’s unlikely it will give useful answers for your specific products.
- You will need to write useful support articles, and also think about the keywords you use.
- Chat messages are short. Even if the right solution is identified, it doesn’t offer images, videos or screenshots.
But there’s the emails as a fallback?
Most companies no long have a human responder, and rely on the email function to get queries. It IS better than nothing, but it’s tough on your support team.
- The emails received from Chatbots don’t give a lot of information, and are difficult to answer without checking back with the sender.
- There is a lot of spam amongst the real queries. Staff dread Monday morning.
- The sender has had to suffer through many hours of waiting, especially if they are from a different time zone. Hopefully they don’t turn to social media.
- The sender will have searched further, and might find an easy-to-find wrong solution. They will blame your lack of response, rather than their search skills!
If you would like to know more about my “Alt-Chat” solution, give me a call!
* Please help me find a new name, I can’t keep putting Alt-Chat in inverted commas!
