Man or machine? That is the question! There is an endless flow of information being pushed onto our screens about the danger of robots and machines taking over the world. Martin Ford’s Rise of the robots (2015) presents a blatantly bleak view of automation and the ‘threat of jobless future’ due to the advances of technology.
When it comes to automated customer service agents, I am sure we all have long winded stories of negative experiences. On the flip-side however, I have also had my share of less than favourable customer service experiences with humans. While there is evidence of the frustrations of not being able to interact with a human to resolve customer service issues, there is considerably more evidence which supports the view that the human was unable to resolve the query, and a chatbot could have more than adequately dealt with the matter in a considerably shorter time frame (Xu et al, 2017). Chatbots are also consistently patient and polite; remain unruffled by rude customers, high traffic, or repeated requests for the same information, and never tire (McNeal & Newyear, 2013).
I think there is a time and a place for everything. But given the inflated lack of patience and the abundance of immediacy that humans expect from the service sector nowadays, I think chatbots are a good option for quick enquiries and to resolve systematic ‘problems’.