Chatbots May Not Be As Effective As Hoped (Yet)
Just 8% of customers use a chatbot during customer service interactions, according to a recent Gartner survey, with only 25% saying they would use a chatbot for assistance in the future.
With customer service and support leaders emphasizing chatbot development more strongly, low customer engagement suggests chatbots don’t effectively assist customers with their questions or issues.
The survey included 497 B2B and B2C customers from December 2022 through February 2023. The results found that the possibility of resolution varied by the issue, and the ability of the chatbot to move a customer’s problem forward was the top driver of adoption.
“While many customer service and support leaders look to chatbots as the future of the function, customers clearly need some convincing,” said Michael Rendelman, senior specialist, research, in the Gartner Customer Service and Support practice. “To improve chatbot adoption, the key is to focus on improving the chatbot’s ability to move customers’ issues forward.”
Only 17% of billing disputes could be resolved through a chatbot, while resolution rates for customers making a return or cancellation were as high as 58%. Based on the survey, the chatbot seemed to struggle to provide information on a product and service or deal with complaints or service changes to a customer’s account.
There is also a disconnect between what issues are a good match for the chatbots to resolve and what customers think they can use it for, highlighting a disconnect in understanding the technology's capabilities. Customers are only 2% more likely to use a chatbot for a return or cancellation than for a billing issue, even though there is a stark difference in resolution rates between them.
“Chatbots aren’t effective for all issue types,” said Rendelman. “As generative AI makes them more advanced, customer confusion about what chatbots can and can’t do is likely to get worse. It’s up to service and support leaders to guide customers to chatbots when it’s appropriate for their issue and to other channels when another channel is more appropriate.”
