Are you talking to me?
I got an invitation to the Chatbot Conference in the Metaverse. I received it in one of my spam-only email addresses, which I use when requesting information from companies. You would be surprised how quickly your email address gets around.
The email promised an action-packed event. On the first day, we will focus on the big picture from 30,000 feet. Later we will do a deep dive into areas like the Metaverse, Voice, Customer Service, Sales and Marketing, RPAs, UX and NLU. On the second day there will be a Certified Conversational Design Workshop where I will design a Conversational AI agent in the full day workshop. I’m not sure if the course is certified or if I will become certified after just one day of designing my AI agent.
To make it even more interesting, the organizers are promising that I will get an 'NFT for my identity'. I could not resist and followed the link 'What is the Personality NFT?'. Here is the explanation:
We have developed the most complete Psychometrics Test which includes your Big 5 personality traits, value systems, identity and allows you to predict future behavior. You take our free Psychometrics Personality Test and then you will be able to turn your personality into an NFT. Personality NFTs will be minted on a first come first serve basis which gives you the opportunity to become one of the first people to have their personality minted on the blockchain.
They also address topics such as Instant Trust & Privacy, Rarity, Community Owned and Using the Personality Cards in our Community with the ultimate objective of Gamifying Meaning, Purpose & Joy. These people are on some non-Metaverse bad shit.
Back to the Chatbot conference. While visiting the website, I noticed that one element was missing: a Chatbot which would answer all my questions about this conference. You would think that the organizers would be the first one to get certified by taking the certified course about building Conversational AI agent.
On your behalf I did a short journey through the chatbot universe to report back about where the industry is at.
First stop, Absorp. They’re the makers of an LMS (Learning Management System). I didn’t choose them randomly. I wanted to see if this product supports Single Sign On (SSO) for integration with one project I am working on. Here’s my experience:
Absorb Bot: Hey there Have any questions? We have humans available to talk now!
Absorb Bot: Great! A few questions to get you to the right resource. What brought you to our website today? 'Presents me with several suggestions'
Me: [I choose] 'I'm trying to contact support'
Absorb Bot: Of course! The best and fastest way to get help from our support team is by submitting a ticket here: https://support.absorblms.com/
Conversation over.
After that, I went to Google and typed 'Absorb SSO integration' to get the right link to a page I was looking for.
Next stop: Shaw.ca. Coincidentally, my colleague had a security related issue. Let's see if Shaw’s chatbot is helpful:
Shaw.ca Bot: Welcome! I’m your Virtual Shaw Assistant. Using a short sentence, question or key words, let me know what I can help you with today. You can also respond with ‘hello’ or ‘menu’ to get started.
Me: My email account got hacked
Shaw.ca Bot: Are you asking about Shaw Home (Internet, TV, Phone) or Shaw Mobile?
Me: [I choose] 'Shaw Home'
Shaw.ca Bot: Phishing scams use fraudulent websites and falsified emails to trick you into providing personal information. Learn how to identify and report phishing attempts.
Shaw.ca Bot: Did my response help? Feedback helps me grow.
Me: [Closing the Chatbot window, I get a pop-up message] 'Are you sure you want to end this conversation?' ....
Next, I do a Google search for 'Chatbots' and I get a list of companies which are developing chatbots. Let's see how these companies use their own creations.
Intercom. It brands itself as “the best way to connect with your customers” - great! So I start a conversation and the first message that comes back is this: Our usual reply time is a few minutes.
Fine. I’ll use those few minutes to search elsewhere. Next up, Khoros Bot. They say they have “The ultimate AI-powered chatbot.” Funny thing: No chatbot present on their website.
Next, I moved on to Sprinklr: “The Unified-CXM platform for all customer-facing functions” - sounds impressive. A chatbot asks me what my job function is and offers me a link to their 'Modern Research' page.
The ultimate was the explanation that I got at Drift. “Chatbots are software applications that use artificial intelligence & natural language processing to understand what a human wants, and guides them to their desired outcome with as little work for the end user as possible. Like a virtual assistant for your customer experience touchpoints.”
Here you have it. Do you have a plan to really annoy your customers? In the name of efficiency, do you want to save money? Do you want to have amazing KPIs ready, to demonstrate how you are improving customer service? Use chatbots.
If you are really serious about customer service, have people to help people. Your satisfied customers will become your brand ambassadors and will help you to grow your business. And that's the recurrent pattern.