Chat bots are becoming an inevitable part of our life. People are finding more uses for them. The main purpose for them is not just entertainment anymore. They can and are being used in business, education, the gaming industry, etc.
People have always wanted to make a machine think and respond to a human as an equal, using a human language. Early results of the consistent work in this area have been promising, yet characterized by restricted vocabulary and ignorance of the real world’s complexities. However, things are changing now. Constant development of technology has resulted in the creation of several chat bots that are able to imitate human communication, in ways that was not thought to be possible earlier.
Since then, ELIZA’s time chat bots have changed a lot. Jabberwacky, A.L.I.C.E., D.U.D.E. are the names that rule the world of chat bots nowadays. While they may not engage in an entirely “human” conversation, they are good enough to delude their communication partners and pass for as human.
This ability of chat bots to conduct a limited dialogue with humans has found its ever-widening application in many areas, including today’s business.
It is not a secret that billions of calls are made yearly to customer care services of different companies. The average duration of these calls is around half a minute. Since technology is evolving the products become more complicated. Digital cameras, laptops, and cell phones are only some of the items that produce a constant flow of calls to customer care. As the products become more complex, so do the questions. This leads to an increase in the call duration.
One such call costs $4-5 to a company. Naturally, the company wants to reduce expenses. And this is where chat bots come into the picture. “Hiring” chat bots is much cheaper than hiring people to do the same job. That’s why more and more large companies decide to make use of chat bots as virtual assistants.
One of the most well-known chat bots that perform these functions is Anna (http://193.108.42.79/ikea-us/cgi-bin/ikea-us.cgi), a virtual “face” of the Swedish company IKEA. Presented with a bright positive avatar, Anna is able to answer customers’ questions, and help them choose a product in at least 18 languages. She will give you the closest IKEA shop for your location. In case your question is too complicated for her she will suggest connecting you to a human consultant.
This technology found an interesting use in the U.S. Army. Next IT designed Sergeant Star (http://sgtstar.goarmy.com/ActiveAgentUI/welcome.aspx), who can answer questions about Army life. The audience of the website is mostly young men in the age from 17 to 24 years who spend a lot of time surfing the Internet. Sergeant Star has answered over 4 million questions till date. The results of the new technology are impressive:
- average time duration spent on the website increased from 4 to 10 minutes,
- the number of questions asked doubled,
- monthly Sergeant Star responds to over 100,000 queries.
To summarize, chat bots’ employment can be beneficial in many ways. First, it reduces the costs of customer care department. Secondly, the time for dealing with one request has decreased. This means that more requests can be processed in the same time period, resulting in increased productivity. Lastly, as technology improves, the variety of tasks that chat bots can perform increases with every passing day.
Chat bots not only respond to clients’ questions but also help them make better decisions about the company’s products and services. They provide clients with information about the website’s content, guide them through relevant links, and even help them choose suitable candidates from the company’s database, in case it is a recruiting agency.
Naturally, chat bots are not perfect, and for the moment at least, they cannot completely replace humans in the field of customer care or other areas. For now they can assist humans, and they do it well. But as they evolve, the quality of their performance will be closer to that of a human worker. And considering how many people are unhappy with their ‘human’ customer care experiences, that time moment not be too distant.
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