All chatbots must die. I’d like to say it was fun while it lasted, but was it really?
I understand the appeal, truly. It’s a well established 21st century business mantra for all the side hustlers and serial entrepreneurs out there: “Automation is the key to scaling.” If we can save time, labor, and therefore money by automating systems, that means we have more time to build our brands and sell our goods and services.
Automation makes sense in many ways, but not all automation tools were created equal. While many tools for automation are extremely effective and useful, chatbots have been problematic from the start. Tools for email marketing, social media, internal team communication, and project management are a few examples of automation that have helped many a startup or other small business kick things into high gear quickly, so that they can spend time wooing clients and raising capital. They definitely have their place in the world of business.
However promising or intriguing chatbots seemed when they were shiny and new, they have lost their luster. If we have seen any life lesson in 2020, it is that humans are uniquely adept at finding ways to make a mess of things.
The artificial intelligence of most chatbots has to be loaded, over time, into the system, by humans. We try to come up with every possible customer-business interaction to respond to with the aim of being helpful. However, language is dynamic, interactive, with near infinite combinations, not to mention dialects, misspellings, and slang.
It would take an unrealistic amount of time to be able to program a chatbot to compute, much less reply to, all possible interactions. If you don’t believe me, consider your voice-activated phone bot or autocorrect spelling. It doesn’t take a whole lot to run those trains off the rails, at least temporarily. There will always be someone trying to confuse the bots, to get a terse, funny, or nonsensical answer, too.
Chatbots can work well when you are asking straightforward questions about a single topic. Even then, they can fall short. A report by AI Multiple showed that some chatbots were manipulated into expressing agreement with racist, violent, or unpatriotic (to China, where they were created) ideas. Others, like CNN and WSJ, had problems helping people unsubscribe from their messages.
Funny, shocking, or simply unhelpful answers abound in the world of chatbot fails. People are bound to make it messy, either accidentally or on purpose.
In general, it feels like the time has come to put chatbots out to pasture. Here are some helpful questions from azumbrunnen.me to help you decide when it’s worth keeping yours.
- Is the case simple enough to work on chatbot? Chatbots are good with direct and short statements and requests, generally. However, considering that Comcast’s research shows at least 1,700 ways to say “I want to pay my bill,” according to Netomi, the definition of “simple enough” is not so simple.
- Is your Natural Language Processor capable and sophisticated enough? Pre-scripted chatbots are often the ones to fail more quickly than chatbots built with an NLP. It will take a solid NLP to deal with the intricacies of conversational human language.
- Are your users in chat based environments? If so, then it could be useful, as you are meeting your customers where they are. Otherwise, if chatbots pop up whenever someone visits your website or Facebook page, it can really stress them out or turn them off.
I personally treat most chatbots like moles in a digital whack-a-mole game. The race is on to close every popup as quickly as possible, including chatbots. I understand that from time to time, in certain, clearly defined and specific scenarios, having a chatbot field the first few questions can help direct the customer to the correct person to resolve their problems or direct them to FAQs.
They are difficult to program within the expansiveness of the human mind and human language, though, and a lot of people find them terribly annoying. It’s time to move on.
Parag Majumdar
March 29, 2009 at 7:01 am
RT: @rampantheart: SEO Quick tips – straight from the mouth of Google: https://is.gd/puhS
DivasWhoDine
March 29, 2009 at 7:06 am
SEO Quick tips – straight from the mouth of Google. https://ow.ly/1COX
Matt Richling
March 29, 2009 at 7:03 am
Has anyone used a specific XML plugin for wordpress? There seem to be a couple, am I able to use more than one at the same time?
Jack Leblond
March 29, 2009 at 10:29 am
Matt – Take a look at the plugins listed in this AG post, they should work well for you. https://agentgenius.com/?p=10233
As for having more than one plugin to do the same thing – not a good idea, your results may be quite unpredictable.
Trace
March 29, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I’ve always used this one with success…..
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
Catherine Harrigan
March 29, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Interesting article on SEO Tips – https://agentgenius.com/?p=11278 worth a read.
Jack Leblond
March 30, 2009 at 1:42 pm
10 SEO tips for beginners https://agentgenius.com/?p=11278
Jack Leblond
March 30, 2009 at 4:48 pm
For the west coasters; What I did on vacation https://tinyurl.com/d7fou5 and SEO tips for beginners https://tinyurl.com/d7hwy8
Karen Yetter
March 30, 2009 at 7:01 pm
SEO Quick Tips – Straight From the Mouth of Google https://bit.ly/CMr6e
Kylee McRae
March 30, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Google gives SEO quick tips https://agentgenius.com/?p=11278
Christian Small
March 30, 2009 at 7:39 pm
RT @KarenYetter: SEO Quick Tips – Straight From the Mouth of Google https://bit.ly/CMr6e
Jodi Gaines Pereira
March 30, 2009 at 8:10 pm
RT @KarenYetter: SEO Quick Tips – Straight From the Mouth of Google https://bit.ly/CMr6e – very useful
Kyle Brigham
April 1, 2009 at 10:53 pm
10 pretty good tips for SEO…some stuff you might already know and some you might not! https://ow.ly/1Sej
Chaunna Brooke
April 1, 2009 at 11:04 pm
I think it is always a must to follow what Google sees in every website. The tips relayed here are the basics. Once followed, rest assured to see your site soar in SERPs.
real estate syracuse,
April 11, 2009 at 2:21 am
What are the efficiencies of a keyword as an anchor text to make directory submission?
‘Use good and unique page titles.”- how I can classified good and bad?
Kevin Sandridge
May 27, 2009 at 11:44 am
Classic tips, Jack – and ones we all need to follow consistently. I find that many Realtors have a hard time pulling unique content together, and they sometimes feel that it’s just too much trouble to put these extra – yet simple – 10 steps into practice. Are you seeing the same thing?