Meaningful Interactions With A Non-Human

Although it’s easy to blame the chatbot for a miserable experience, we need to realise that, just as it takes two hands to clap, it takes both chatbot and customer to create a satisfactory interaction.

While previous studies have focused mainly on the chatbot, including why companies implem...

• Reimagine a customer service team – involve people in the redesign of customer service delivery through a mix of chatbots and actual employees
• Treat chatbots like a new (digital) employee – spend time and effort extending their skills
• Find the sweet spot for escalating an enq...

Interactions with chatbots have become increasingly common in our daily lives. But when asking for information or trying to solve a problem, we’re often annoyed when the chatbot either can’t understand or misinterprets our inquiry.

Even worse is when it advises us to contact the call centre...

Based on our research, we provide three tips for your next encounter with a chatbot:

• Remember that a chatbot is not human and many chatbots can’t understand nuanced natural language, so try not to use complex sentences or provide too much information at once
• Don’t give up too q...

Accommodating interactions are ones where the customer is in the driver’s seat, helping the chatbot understand their needs by changing the way they phrase the question or statement, repeating their request or clarifying their intent.

People see the novelty of chatbots as an open invitation ...

We find that to create constructive, meaningful engagement with a chatbot, the actions and reactions of the customer and a willingness to make it work are as important as the chatbot’s own functionality.

We identified six distinct types of human-chatbot interactions: socialising, co...