Consumers Don't Like Chatbots, Survey Finds

83% of consumers prefer to interact with human rather than virtual agents, according to a new survey conducted by research company Forrester Research Inc., commissioned by billing technology company Amdocs Corporation. 40% of the survey respondents conceded that interacting with chatbots is more convenient and faster.

Forrester surveyed 7,000 consumers in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The problem with chatbots, according to 78% of those surveyed, is their failure to understand complex human needs. 57% also listed the inability of bots to handle multiple questions at the same time.

The study was published on Tuesday, the same day Amdocs announced the launch Smartbot, a chatbot service for call centers, created in collaboration with Microsoft.

The study also forecasted that within five years 85% of customer interactions would be handled by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. 35% of consumers interact with virtual agents at least once a week, according to the survey.

Forrester found that consumers prefer bots that have a humanoid appearance. 36% prefer to interact with a "female" bot, compared to 14% who prefer their bot to be male. The most sought after personality traits in bots are politeness, thoughtfulness, and intelligence, followed by humor. While 42% of service providers design youthful-sounding bots, only 18% of consumers said they want to interact with a younger-sounding bot.

The Amdocs-commissioned study concluded that service providers should invest in better personalization of their AI technologies, while in reality more resources are invested in information security and response speed.

Israeli-founded Amdocs is headquartered in Missouri. The company employs around 25,000 people. In 2016, the company’s revenues totaled $3.7 billion.