Chatbots are all the craze. Just like blockchain, it’s something every business simply needs. Or do they? As for most of the chatbots I’ve seen, they do more harm than good. They drive me up the wall. It’s like dancing in a nightclub: Unless you really know what you’re doing, you’re going to make a fool of yourself.
Here are the 3 things to consider if you want customers to be dissatisfied with your effort on user experience:
1. Be emotionless
A chatbot is a bot after all, so who cares about personality or empathy? Just keep those automated messages coming. And definitely, don’t be funny. Singapore’s most successful chatbot (BusUncle) may be known for its jokes, but what do they know?
They are way too popular anyway. People probably don’t like your company to begin with, so why suck up to your audience with well-meant humour? If your users need a friend, they can talk to Siri or Alexa.
2. Keep it random
Why should customers know the reason for you to have a bot? Isn’t that obvious – you did it because it’s cool to have one (and because your competitor does.) So, who really wants to know its purpose or how it can help?
Just like having pepper the robot at your event booth awards you Centurion for your conference booth game, sandwiching bots between customers and your company to serve no particular purpose proves you care about what matters (being random) over the boring stuff (serving customer needs or solving their problems)
3. Make it nice and complicated
Simplicity and intuitive UX is boring. Make it really hard for your customers to figure out what your bot can do. Ideally, pretend like it can handle anything. Then, whatever your users say, make sure you reply with the same template message.
Next, it’s always advisable to ask people whether they have time for a short survey, as you value their opinion. By this time, you will have successfully wasted a few minutes of your customers’ time and sent them scrambling to find the hotline. Which is great, because we all love an overloaded contact centre.
By now, you’re hopefully beginning to understand just how important it is to have bots working for you. If you are also interested in achieving business outcomes as opposed to driving up your users’ stress levels, you may find it pays off to learn from the best bots in business.
In episode 2 of the Present To Future podcast, I co-host, BusUncle founder and CEO of BotDistrikt Abhilash Murthy joins us to decode the success of the most popular chatbot used (and proudly made) in Singapore. Most of all, we speak with him about his experience in helping clients build amazing conversational experiences that are fun to use and get the job done.
Watch the video here :
–
Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.
Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.
Image Credit:
The post How not to build a bot: 3 steps to a cringeworthy chatbot experience appeared first on e27.