Given the push by most service companies to replace their customer service folks with AI (i.e. a Chatbot), will we still get up-sold services? Will we get better deals if we say we’d like to talk to the Customer Retention Bot? With storefronts disappearing, will we never interact with humans again?
What is a chatbot? Current definition:
a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet.
This is another weird part of FinTech, where you won’t talk to a human. You will interact with a ChatBot. Who gets the commissions if ChatBot convinces you to buy their Balanced Mutual Funds? An old broken-down programmer like me could program something pretty simple to shepherd customers into the “Balanced Fund Paddock.”
When I speak to a credit card chatbot about how I accidentally missed a payment, will it cut me some slack and rescind the interest rate if I promise to pay off my bill ultimately? Surprisingly, that could be built into the AI for the system, but will it? The excuse, “sorry, the machine is programmed that way,” is an easy cop-out for most firms.
What Does the Future Hold?
The answer is always no unless you ask. However, if you ask a machine, will you get help?
I can envision a future where folks share cheat phrases to use with ChatBots to get better deals or better services. All technology has biases in them somewhere. You need to know where to look.
Do folks even enjoy talking to Chatbots?
