消费者对某些任务的聊天机器人的容忍度越来越高

如果你想抚平恼怒的客户，并提供更高效的客户服务，可以考虑用对话机器人代替一屋子的人类公司代表。聊天机器人可能是吸引客户和与客户相关的更好的解决方案。

根据Myplanet首席执行官Jason Cottrell的说法，聊天机器人将改变企业安排预约、消费者查询银行账户、购物者甚至只是订购披萨的方式。但消费者对聊天机器人的接受程度到底有多高，是一个深入研究的课题，因为营销人员正在寻求将聊天机器人融入商业流程的最佳路径。

预计到2024年，聊天机器人将成为一个13亿美元的市场。这些由人工智能(AI)驱动的对话式软件应用，整合到电子商务和面向客户的网站中，有可能改善信息收集和客户服务任务，并为处理电子商务和客户关系管理提供更好的工具。

研究人员认为，消费者对各种聊天机器人技术的舒适度正在向客户服务、日程安排、银行和治疗方面软化。但消费者的反应仍然不那么热烈欢迎聊天机器人可能提供的所有服务。

消费者更喜欢使用聊天机器人来完成简单的任务，比如预约或客户服务。然而，在使用聊天机器人进行治疗或银行业务等个人任务时，消费者明显更不习惯。例如，客户服务聊天机器人的舒适度为33%，而银行聊天机器人的舒适度为18%。

如果没有其他赢得消费者使用聊天机器人开展业务，其便捷性和效率可能会取得成功。例如，Gupshup公司的首席执行官Beerud Sheth提出，聊天机器人比起等待呼叫中心人员接听电话，更快、更容易使用。

"聊天机器人可以为用户的询问提供即时响应。这对于简单的任务尤为重要，聊天机器人可以充分而快速地解决这些问题。"他告诉《电子商务时代》。

接受度的代际因素

虽然企业对聊天机器人的使用仍处于早期，但采用率，特别是在美国和欧洲，预示着持续的进步。此外，根据Pund-IT首席分析师Charles King的说法，科技行业的趋势和努力正在帮助推动聊天机器人的发展和采用。

"从广义上讲，获得负担得起的人工智能技术（如机器学习）有助于加快聊天机器人的进化。更具体地说，微软最近推出的Power虚拟代理等解决方案提供了组织开发聊天机器人所需的工具，以满足其离散的业务需求。"他告诉《电子商务时代》。

值得注意的是，聊天机器人的成功很大程度上取决于其成功模仿人类互动的能力。在这一点上，质量差异很大，他补充道。

可以理解的是，企业很欣赏聊天机器人技术通过取代或减少呼叫中心员工来节省成本的能力。但在削减人数和割断自己的喉咙与降低客户满意度之间有一条细微的界限，他警告说。

"我相信，这里也有代际因素在起作用。随着基础技术的改进，喜欢活体代表的老年消费者被习惯于与虚拟代理互动的年轻人所取代，聊天机器人将在各个企业和行业中变得普遍，"King说。

人类模拟

到目前为止，消费者看到聊天机器人作为对话系统出现在网站上，提供客户服务、请求路由和信息收集。购物者在拨通客户服务部门和其他企业的电话时，也会与聊天机器人接触。

聊天机器人是高度复杂的软件应用程序，可以通过文本或文本到语音技术进行在线聊天对话。它们取代了与真人代理的直接接触。

此外，聊天机器人还可以缓解客户对该技术的恐惧，Sheth建议。与网站和应用程序不同，聊天机器人使计算机能够像人类一样行事。

"聊天机器人是自然的互动，不需要任何技术专长来使用。因此，聊天机器人可以减少客户对使用技术的焦虑或恐惧，"他解释说。

在高端，人工智能驱动的性能背后的软件包括广泛的单词分类过程，自然语言处理器和复杂的人工智能。其他聊天机器人应用程序扫描一般关键词，并使用从相关库或数据库中获得的常用短语生成响应。

"聊天机器人是一种特殊的机器人，是一种可以与用户进行自动聊天对话的机器人。聊天机器人可以模拟人类与用户的聊天互动，通常用于客户支持、销售和营销。"Sheth说。

Myplanet最近的一项研究显示，消费者正在学习至少容忍与聊天机器人进行一些任务的互动，无论是在电话中通过语音，还是在网站上使用文本进行。但在消费者，普遍准备好与聊天机器人真正亲密接触之前，还需要一个增长因素。

Myplanet在2020年10月进行了最新的调查。研究人员在谷歌调查发布者网络的网站上使用谷歌消费者调查询问了500名年龄在18至65岁以上的美国受访者。对答复进行了年龄、性别和地点的加权，以更接近人群的代表性，并消除调查样本的偏差。

调查向参与者展示了一系列九张图片和对各种形式的互动技术的简短描述。研究人员要求受访者对他们不同意或同意这句话的强烈程度进行五级评分。"我觉得和这种技术互动很舒服"

语音助手最受青睐

也许一个更令人惊讶的结果显示，语音助手的可取性超过了文字聊天机器人。在所有被调查的聊天机器人技术中，手机上的语音助手应用与聊天机器人技术的平均舒适度（22%的舒适度同意率）相比，排名明显更理想（33%的舒适度同意率）。

一般来说，受访者认为使用语音助手的聊天机器人技术比基于文本的聊天机器人更受欢迎。例如，问题中提到了语音聊天机器人和文字聊天机器人的预约选项。

与使用文本的排期聊天机器人（20%的舒适度）相比，使用语音助手的排期聊天机器人更受欢迎（24%的舒适度）。

同样令人惊讶的是女性在接受聊天机器人互动方面所扮演的角色。调查结果显示，女性正在推动聊天机器人可取性的增长。

更多发现

一般来说，研究人员发现，不同年龄段、性别和受访地区的舒适度没有显著差异。然而，女性受访者表示，她们比男性受访者更喜欢使用电话上的语音助手（37% vs 30%的舒适度）、银行聊天机器人（22% vs 15%的舒适度）和客户服务聊天机器人（34% vs 21%的舒适度）。

这些最新的反应非常重要，因为它表明聊天机器人的接受度越来越高。这一发现与该公司2020年6月调查中的青睐度整体上升相一致。

10月份的调查发现，受访者更喜欢聊天机器人来完成简单的任务。调查者表示，处理更敏感信息的聊天机器人，如健康和银行数据，不如更注重客户服务或调度的聊天机器人受欢迎。

例如，客户服务聊天机器人的舒适度为33%，而银行聊天机器人的舒适度为18%。

也许最不利的反应涉及触及 "人类 "话题的聊天机器人。治疗师聊天机器人排名非常不理想，舒适度为15%（与自动驾驶出租车的舒适度相当），并反映出与用于舒适和治疗应用的物理机器人相似的观点。

完整的调查结果可以在这里看到。

互动101

Sheth的公司为开发者开发了一个AI驱动的平台，为短信、Twitter、Slack等构建机器人。该平台有助于开发用户通知和客户参与。

他指出，特定的因素使消费者对聊天机器人技术感到不舒服。虽然聊天机器人可能具有人工智能驱动的自然语言能力，但它们可能仍然不完美。

"聊天机器人可能无法理解用户的询问，并提供不正确的回答，使用户感到不舒服或失望，"他说。"年轻人是短信的原生用户，他们是聊天机器人技术的自然采用者。"

Gupshup首席执行官建议，企业可以通过自动处理常见问题开始引入聊天机器人。之后，企业可以根据用户的实际查询，随着时间的推移增加更多的自动化功能。

"聊天机器人对话是个人功能的理想选择，因为聊天是一对一的私人互动，除了参与者之外，任何人都看不到。"Sheth说。

原文题目：Consumers Becoming More Tolerant of Chatbots for Certain Tasks

原文：If you want to smooth over irate clients and offer more efficient customer services, consider conversational bots instead of a roomful of human company reps. Chatbots could be a better solution to engaging clients and relating to customers.

According to Myplanet CEO Jason Cottrell, chatbots will transform the way businesses schedule appointments, consumers check their bank accounts, and shoppers even just order a pizza. But just how accepting consumers will get with chatbots is a subject of intensive research as marketers seek the best paths to integrate chatbots into the business process.

Chatbots are projected to be a $1.3 billion market by 2024. These conversational software applications, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and integrated into e-commerce and customer-facing websites, have the potential for improving information gathering and customer service tasks, as well as providing better tools for handling e-commerce and customer relations management.

Researchers see consumers' comfort levels with a variety of chatbot technologies softening towards customer service, scheduling, banking, and therapy. But consumer responses are still less than warmly welcoming all that chatbots might offer.

Consumers prefer using chatbots for simple tasks such as scheduling appointments or customer service. However, when it comes to using chatbots for personal tasks such as therapy or banking, consumers were significantly more uncomfortable. For example, customer service chatbots had a 33 percent comfort level compared to banking chatbots with an 18 percent comfort level.

If nothing else wins over consumers to use chatbots to conduct business, their convenience and efficiency might well succeed. For example, rather than waiting on hold for a call center agent to pick up the call, chatbots are quicker and easier to use, offered Beerud Sheth, CEO of Gupshup.

"Chatbots provide instant responses to user queries. This is especially important for simple tasks that chatbots can resolve adequately and quickly," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Generational Factors of Acceptance

Though chatbot usage by businesses is still in the early days, adoption rates, especially in the U.S. and Europe, portend continuing advances. In addition, tech industry trends and efforts are helping to drive chatbot development and adoption, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

"Broadly speaking, access to affordable AI technologies like machine learning is helping to speed chatbot evolution. More specifically, solutions such as the Power Virtual Agents that Microsoft recently introduced provide the tools that organizations require to develop chatbots that meet their discrete business needs," he told the E-Commerce Times.

It is worth noting that the success of chatbots largely depends on their ability to successfully mimic human interactions. At this point, quality varies widely, he added.

Understandably, companies appreciate chatbot technology's ability to save them money by replacing or reducing call center employees. But there is a fine line between cutting headcount and slitting your own throat with degraded customer satisfaction, he warned.

"I believe that there are also generational factors at work here. As foundational technologies improve and older consumers who prefer living representatives are replaced by younger people who are accustomed to interacting with virtual agents, chatbots will become common across businesses and industries," said King.

Human Simulation

So far, consumers are seeing chatbots pop up as dialog systems on websites providing customer service, request routing, and information gathering. Shoppers also engage chatbots when they dial into customer service departments and other businesses.

Chatbots are highly sophisticated software applications that can conduct online chat conversations via text or text-to-speech technologies. They replace direct contact with a live human agent.

Also, chatbots can ease customer fears about the technology, Sheth suggested. Unlike websites and apps, chatbots enable computers to behave like humans.

"Chatbots are natural to interact with and require no technical expertise to use. Thus, chatbots can reduce customer anxiety or fear about using technology," he explained.

At the high end, the software behind the AI-powered performance includes extensive word-classification processes, natural language processors, and sophisticated AI. Other chatbot applications scan for general keywords and generate responses using common phrases obtained from an associated library or database.

"Chatbots are a special kind of bot, one that can engage in automated chat conversations with users. Chatbots simulate human chat interactions with a user and are often used for customer support, sales, and marketing," Sheth said.

A recent study by Myplanet shows that consumers are learning to at least tolerate interacting with chatbots for some tasks, whether via voice during phone calls or conducting using text on a website. But there is still a growth factor needed before consumers, in general, are ready to get really cozy with chatbots.

Myplanet conducted its latest survey in October 2020. Researchers asked 500 U.S. respondents aged 18 to 65+ using Google Consumer Surveys on websites in the Google Surveys Publisher Network. Responses were weighted for age, gender, and location to more closely represent the population and remove bias from the survey sample.

The survey presented participants with a series of nine images and a short description of various forms of interactive technology. Researchers asked respondents to rank on a five-point scale how strongly they disagreed or agreed with the statement: "I would feel comfortable interacting with this technology."

Voice Assistants Most Preferred

Perhaps one of the more surprising results shows voice assistants are outpacing text chatbots in desirability. Of all chatbot technologies surveyed, voice assistant apps on phones ranked significantly more desirable (33 percent comfort agree rate) compared to the average comfort level with chatbot technologies (22 percent comfort agree rate).

In general, respondents viewed chatbot technologies that used a voice assistant as more desirable than text-based chatbots. For example, the question referenced voice chatbot and text chatbot options for scheduling an appointment.

Scheduling chatbots that used a voice assistant ranked more desirable (24 percent comfort level) compared to scheduling chatbots that used text (20 percent comfort level).

Also surprising is the role women play in embracing chatbot interactions. Women are driving the growth in chatbot desirability, according to the survey results.

More Findings

In general, researchers found no significant differences in comfort levels across age groups, genders, and regions surveyed. However, female respondents indicated that they are more comfortable than male respondents with voice assistants on phones (37 percent vs 30 percent comfort level), banking chatbots (22 percent vs 15 percent comfort level), and customer service chatbots (34 percent vs 21 percent comfort level).

These latest responses are highly significant as an indicator of the growing acceptance of chatbots. This finding aligns with an overall increase in favorability from the company's June 2020 survey.

The October survey found that respondents preferred chatbots for simple tasks. Survey takers indicated that chatbots dealing with more sensitive information, such as health and banking data, were less desirable than chatbots that were more customer service or scheduling oriented.

For example, customer service chatbots had a 33 percent comfort level compared to banking chatbots with an 18 percent comfort level.

Perhaps the most unfavorable response involved chatbots that touched on "human" topics. Therapist chatbots ranked very undesirable with a 15 percent comfort level (comparable to the comfort level of self-driving taxis) and reflect a similar viewpoint to physical robotics used for comfort and therapy applications.

The full survey results can be seen here.

Interactions 101

Sheth's company developed an AI-powered platform for developers to build bots for SMS, Twitter, Slack, and others. The platform helps develop user notifications and customer engagement.

Specific factors make consumers uncomfortable with chatbot technologies, he noted. While chatbots may have AI-powered natural language capabilities, they may still not be perfect.

"A chatbot may not understand user queries and provide incorrect responses, making users uncomfortable or disappointed," he said. "Younger people who are native users of text messaging are natural adopters of chatbot technologies."

Companies can start introducing chatbots by automating frequently asked queries, suggested the Gupshup CEO. Later, a business can add more automation over time based on actual user queries.

"Chatbot conversations are ideal for personal functions since chat is a private one-on-one interaction that is not visible to anyone except the participants," said Sheth.