30% of Customers Abandon A Brand After a Bad Chatbot Experience Survey

Half of the consumers who have interacted with a chatbot are often frustrated with the robotic tool, according to a new survey by Forrester Consulting on behalf of the automated customer experience platform Cyara. That bad experience prompts 30% of consumers to start looking for an alternative brand, and 73% cancel ongoing purchase plans, numbers which may be one reason customer service AI companies are eager to integrate generative AI models like the one powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Chatbot Failure

Forrester surveyed 1,554 consumers around the world in November. The results showed that chatbot conversations are mediocre, with respondents giving an average rating of 6.4 out of 10 to their chatbot history. Almost 40% of chatbot interactions are negative, according to the data. At the same time, people want to use chatbots and like the idea of getting support more quickly at any time of day or night. The frustrations don’t change the fact that those surveyed rank chatbots higher than talking to a customer service agent. They just want them to be better, as three-quarters of the consumers agreed that chatbots aren’t able to handle complex questions and are prone to error.

On the other hand, a good chatbot experience will draw 61% of surveyed customers back to a brand and encourage 56% to look for chatbots in future brand interactions. That’s certainly what Indian supermarket chain JioMart found when it deployed a WhatsApp chatbot created by conversational AI developer Haptik. JioMart saw a jump in monthly order numbers to more than 200,000 and a 68% rate of customers returning to the chatbot.

“Delivering positive chatbot experiences has a critical impact on customer satisfaction and sales, and sub-par chatbots will not cut it for consumers today. Organizations that invest in quality assurance testing and training chatbots can provide customers with better and more consistent chatbot experiences,” Cyara chief customer officer Dennis Reno said. “Businesses that strive to meet customers’ chatbot expectations can increase customer loyalty, boost brand reputation, and lower contact center support costs since customers are less likely to seek out more expensive avenues of communication. And of course, satisfied customers lead to increased sales, which has a positive impact on a company’s bottom line.”

Generative AI may help companies better their chatbot experience ratings. There’s been a flood of companies and enterprise conversational AI providers experimenting with the OpenAI model underlying ChatGPT or comparable large language models (LLMs). Vusiness conversational AI provider LivePerson recently added generative AI to its Conversational Cloud platform, while Gupshup introduced a chatbot builder based on GPT-3 called Auto Bot Builder. Kore.ai recently upgraded its platform to incorporate generative AI as a way of streamlining the creation of branded assistants. Regardless of the specific model, LLMs cut out the necessity of supplying training data or writing questions and answers manually. The AI handles all of the conversational aspects of the interaction, including contextual content. A survey in a year or two might bring back very different numbers as a result of the avalanche of generative AI in business services.

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