Could A Chatbot Serve My Customers Better While Freeing Up My Staff?

Nik Rawlinson speaks to the people behind some of the best-known British chatbots as he investigates their usefulness to businesses.

Chatbots are nothing new, as anyone who remembers Eliza will tell you. Developed in the mid-1960s, Eliza gave what appeared to be logical answers to typed input. It was an early, primitive example of artificial intelligence.

Now, chatbots are the norm – and are significantly more accomplished. They can decode a user’s input, as well as interrogate a database of possible results and serve up the best match. Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google’s Assistant are by far the most versatile, but a growing army of brand-specific bots are boosting their numbers.

Chatbots don’t take holidays, will never call in sick, and provide their masters with almost unlimited virtual customer service agents. Increasingly, they’re also appearing on the platforms where their users spend much of each day.

Piggybacking another platform

Transport for London (TfL) launched its first bot this summer. It was a logical move for an organisation that already publishes myriad feeds showing everything from pollution levels to the read-outs of its bus stop screens. They’re used by countless third-party apps but never, to date,by TfL itself, which is conspicuous in its absence from both iTunes and the Google Play Store.

Instead, it’s been quietly building TravelBot, a Facebook Messenger bot that uses those same feeds to answer Londoners’ transport queries.

“We’re always looking for new channels to help our customers,” said TfL digital product manager, Charul Gupta, when we asked why it had built a bot rather than an app. “Most of them are online and using messaging platforms anyway, so we know they’re already there.”