What happens when customers encounter chatbots? Discuss our latest research on AI in customer service

ChatGPT ushered in a new era of AI applications, especially a new generation of chatbots for customer service. But while there have been many discussions about how it can transform your business, we often end up overlooking the end-user perspective. Ultimately, they are the ones who will interact with these chatbots. So what do they think?

Now, we're no strangers to the world of bots: we've been debating and developing chatbots and versions of AI bots for years. So the idea of ​​engaging with AI robots and deploying them in your business seems like second nature to us. That's why, as we were building our newest AI chatbot, Fin, we felt the need to conduct extensive user research. We wanted to avoid any biases or preconceptions about bots, so we reached out to the general public and asked them what they thought about it and if their perceptions were changing with the latest developments in AI technology.

The truth is that the traditional chatbots people have dealt with so far are quite unpopular. Ranging from helpful to annoying, these bots have often been seen as mere obstacles in the way of reaching a human agent who can actually solve their problem. But could the tide turn? Could interacting with a chatbot actually become a positive experience for customers? This is precisely what we decided to explore.

In today's episode, we're joined by our own senior product researchers, Cormac O'Dwyer and Sophie Woods, to find out if and how AI is changing people's feelings towards chatbots.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

The perception of traditional chatbots is mixed – their limited ability to understand and help customers leads to frustrating encounters that have soured people on the experience. Likely thanks to ChatGPT, customers perceive AI bots as superior to traditional bots, anticipating better understanding and communication – and a better overall experience. Customers have expressed concerns about not having the ability to escalate issues to a human, as bots cannot comprehend and understand more complex or loaded situations. The option to speak to a human builds trust between business and customer by acknowledging the limitations of the bot and acknowledging the value of human contact when needed. It's still unclear how chatbot interaction patterns will evolve over the next few years, let alone how market dynamics will play into people's expectations of AI bots.

If you like our discussion, check out other episodes of our podcast. You can follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or grab the RSS feed in your player of choice. The following is a slightly edited transcript of the episode.

Bot or not

Liam Geraghty: What inspired you to conduct research on customer attitudes towards AI chatbots?

Cormac O'Dwyer: I guess we spend a lot of time talking to Intercom customers, but from a chatbot perspective, they're not the primary users. Customer service teams are the ones buying, configuring, and reporting on them, but the majority of interactions are actually end users. Customers of our customers.

We know that our customers really care about their customers. They buy a tool like Intercom because they want to provide a great end-user experience. So the more you can understand that or bridge that gap, the better. Ever since ChatGPT came along, there's been a lot of talk about AI in general, but from what we're seeing, it's almost all from an industry or business perspective. And since our customers' customers are the ones who are going to interact with this material, we really wanted to hear from them too.

"If we don't go out there and talk to end users about their perceptions of AI robots, we risk seeing it through this very unrealistic modern world we live in"

The other view is that the distinction between these two groups is not so clear. Anyone working in customer service is also a customer service user. Part of Fin's evaluation, fo...