Can human-operated live chat still beat a chatbot?

The hype around chatbot for website pages and AI is reaching a fever pitch, and even sensible, conservative commentators, like the IMF, believe it could be revolutionary.

But can it replace human live chat operatives? That’s the big question. It might help companies slash their wage bills. But whether customers will accept these solutions is another matter.

Why AI chatbots are so great for customer service

Chatbots fundamentally change customer service economics. Artificial minds that replicate human abilities can reduce costs and potentially eliminate language barriers. A single system could have dozens of multilingual conversations with customers simultaneously.

Moreover, conversational AI-based solutions only need minor tweaks to make them suitable for any particular enterprise. Companies could make small changes to their core logic or datasets to get bots to respond to website visitors optimally.

There are also various quality-of-life perks for using AI chatbots. For example, these systems are available 24/7. You don’t have to pay human reps to be available throughout the night for comprehensive coverage.

You can also respond to customers more rapidly than with conventional reps. Human agents can hold a maximum of one conversation at a time on the phone and two to six via text chat. But bots can respond instantly, the moment a website visitor types something into the chat.

Constantly evolving machine learning can make context-specific improvements to systems. AI chatbots can learn from previous conversations, helping them tailor their outputs to your customers’ requirements.

Can humans still beat chatbots?

With that said, there are numerous reasons why companies should still consider fielding human agents. While AI advances are considerable, the new generation of chatbots can’t do everything.

The first and most obvious reason for keeping conventional reps is that chatbots can’t replicate humans faithfully. AI systems are improving, but many customers prefer a human to listen to their problems, even if what they say is identical to the AI. Just knowing that there is a fellow consciousness on the other side of the interaction has value.

Furthermore, there are still annoying corner cases that AIs cannot solve. AIs simply lack the answers to the requested solutions in their datasets or don’t have the authorisation to proceed with them. 

For example, a customer might arrive with a unique problem that the chatbot hasn’t seen before. The AI system might be able to reason a solution, but it won’t have the experience or intuition to know whether it will work. It may also lack the authority or common sense to determine whether it is giving good advice.

Finally, humans can beat the bots by engaging customers with more context. Simply presenting reps as people similar to site visitors can be an excellent method for driving conversions.

In summary, nobody is saying you shouldn’t add a chatbot to your website. However, combining it with conventional agents will probably improve customer service performance more.