One of the principal use cases for AI in fintech is to deliver “chatbots” that can provide highly-personalised service and support at scale. While chatbots are primarily used to enhance customer experience by offering cost-effective customer support, businesses have also started using chatbots to serve internal customers with knowledge sharing and routine tasks. Personally, I think I prefer dealing with bots rather than with people.
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In a new study, researchers at The Ohio State University found that people preferred interacting with chatbots when they felt embarrassed about what they were buying online — items like antidiarrheal medicine or, for some people, skin care products.
From: When consumers would prefer a chatbot over a person | ScienceDaily.
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Three-quarters of consumers say they prefer speaking to a live customer service agent, according to a survey of 4,000 people in the United States and U.K. released by Five9 and Team Lewis last week.
Almost half of respondents say they don’t trust information from AI-powered customer service chatbots. Three in five Gen Z and millennial consumers tend to have a higher opinion of chatbots and trust the information they produce.
From: Most consumers prefer live agents for customer service, survey finds | CX Dive.
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It seems that I am not alone and that younger people in particular also prefer non-human interaction. I note the example of the restaurant that saw reservation numbers go up on the two years since it began using chatbots instead of human staff to take bookings.
(I also note, with some alarm, that apparently women will be having more sex with robots than men within year or so and that robot sex will be more common than human intercourse by 2050.)
I can see why this:
First of all, you can deal with chatbots asychnoronously while going about other business and while you would feel uncomfortable asking a person to wait for a few minutes while you double-check on date and time with a partner, it’s not problem to pause the chatbot while you make a call, write an e-mail or go and make a cup of tea. It is pretty clear that human customer service at a bank or an airline will soon become the exception rather than the rule.
Secondly, you can save the transcript of the conversation in case you need to refer back to it later or need to reread some instructions.
Finally, you can get annoyed with chatbots. I feel bad yelling at customer service workers when I’m really upset about something. It’s not
Snippings 