Most businesses agree that chatbots deliver a healthy return of investment with minimal effort but how human must a chatbot be to engage real people? A new study from Tidio reveals all.
Chatbot maker Tidio investigated whether chatbots (software app with varying intelligence designed to simulate human conversation) with unique ‘personalities’ are more appealing than those that give mostly robotic answers.
It designed two types of chatbots and presented them to more than 1000 respondents to gauge their opinions on the interaction.
It identified that people are put off by too robotic chatbots (22 per cent of respondents) or too human-like bots (16 per cent). Almost half (47 per cent) closed a chat window after a bot gave them two repetitive answers. The number drops to 28 per cent if a bot attempts to clarify the issue.
More than half of consumers who use chatbots regularly or often do so to get accurate answers to simple and moderately complex queries.
Brands’ positive perception is also influenced by the way chatbots reply to unrelated questions. Fifty-three per cent of consumers build positive associations around brands whose bots use quick-witted comebacks. While robotic replies positively influence only 38 per cent of consumers.
Other key findings:
- 74 per cent of consumers want the chatbot to introduce itself at the start of the conversation
- 77 per cent of consumers want to know what the chatbot can help them with before starting the conversation
- 56 per cent of respondents think chatbots can have limitations
- If the interaction with a chatbot goes smoothly, 73 per cent of consumers are likely to convert.
- If the bot successfully clarifies what the user wants after initial confusion, only five per cent of consumers are dissatisfied with the interaction
“To design a brand mascot you need to choose its personality, think of its appearance, poses, reactions, and so on,” says Monika Kisielewska at Tidio. “If a brand mascot can be brought to life through a chatbot, it can equally help increase brand recall.
“Nowadays, there’s more than the technology to consider when creating a chatbot. If your bot’s personality has a consistent tone of voice as your brand, it can produce the best results for your company.”
