Chatbots: mass hysteria

Bots ... Bots everywhere

^{Heather rice photography}

Only the lazy one today did not hear that chatbots are the future, and mobile applications will soon die out like dinosaurs. All IT publications announce a new era, and the opening of a bots store for an FB-messenger in general promised to become “the most significant event after the opening of the App Store” . Looks like it is not yet.

The media is so convincing that you involuntarily begin to think about the fact that it would be necessary to stop learning from the beautiful design and completely move to the text environment, where, of course, you can buy clothes and refer to the doctor and transfer money to another card much easier.
I am plagued by vague doubts: why press buttons in a telegram or, all the more, enter "/ show menu", "/ choose pepperoni" - is it more convenient than using websites? It is clear that over time the platforms will give more opportunities, even some beginnings of design will appear, but will bots really kill the applications ?
Let me remind you that mobile applications have already killed websites, which, in turn, killed print publications, which killed live chat, which killed rock art. So why are all the dead still not killed?

This is where marketing comes to our rescue, one of the important rules of which is: do not try to convince the user that he is wrong; find your niche and solve another problem. There is a textbook example with the Avis car rental company, which was able to catch up with Hertz, when, instead of “we are better,” she began to say “yes, we are number 2, but we have fewer queues”. Sometimes it is enough to quit trying to convince the user that his head has long been formed and does not want to change. In the same way, it will not be easy to force them to abandon pleasant interfaces in favor of those in which only emoticons are decorated.
Therefore, mobile applications and websites will not disappear anywhere - bots will not be able to replace many of them.
But there is no smoke without fire.
')

Where do legs grow

An example for all this was the Chinese WeChat. For those who hear this name for the first time, I will say that this is the most popular platform in China, it exists for five years, and there are now a lot of opportunities that allow you to spend all your day in it: make an appointment with a doctor, buy products, pay for travel, still damn-those that.
But wait: even WeChat founder Dan Grover says that bots will not replace applications — they will be replaced by better applications. There are quite a few complaints about current operating systems, but, despite the fact that bots are somehow more convenient, they are not universal tools.

It is important to remember one more small detail: in China, affordable phones appeared before affordable computers, so they were used to using them not only as dialers for a long time - payment for mobile transfers here was practiced before it became mainstream. That is, smartphones there have become a more advanced version of what has always been done with the phone.
If we take the situation in other countries, then we rather moved from the desktop to a more compact viewing mode. Similarly, before websites were pulled up to the level of desktop applications, they did not offer a more primitive interface: we needed to keep the habit of using a full-fledged tool, but at the same time take advantage of the cloud approach.
In the case of phones, the Chinese had to make the familiar a little more convenient, so there WeChat broke out as a native. We are now being offered to move from functionally rich interfaces to single-cell-one-button, and this is already an attempt to break the habits, this is “try baikal - it tastes better than this cola of yours”.

But bots are more convenient!

There are certainly stories in which bots are more convenient than existing solutions, but we are now talking about their imaginary battle with mobile apps and sites. Let's take a closer look at the declared benefits of bots.

1. Huge user base
Traditionally, 1 billion in WhatsApp, 900 million in FB Messenger and other impressive figures are given for credibility.
However, this is just a user base. And - alas - they will not pounce on your bot as soon as you implement it. Just a lot of people use instant messengers, that’s true. But enjoy to communicate with friends.
This is the same as indicating the number of iOS and Android users worldwide and saying, look at how many people - they will all use your application. Will not. And bots even have official stor on not all platforms, so you cannot really advance them yet. That is, you can hang a QR code in your restaurant and collect 20 active users who will even use it. There is no point in counting on global expansion.

2. No need to install a new application.
Indeed, it is much easier to start a conversation with a bot than to install an application, especially if it weighs a lot.
So the new user is objectively cheaper. Not only in terms of money, but also in terms of overcoming psychological barriers.

And at this point they point out that “there are so many applications that they do not fit on the screen, and the user after installation may never find it.”
For some reason, they prefer to forget that if bots do replace applications, there will be as many of them in the chat list. At the same time, there will be friends there, with whom dialogues have much greater value. Bots will have to look for the same way (and they will also move through the list as opposed to shortcuts on the desktop), they will also strain with their numbers, and they will also interfere with the correspondence with friends - and this is what they say the same articles about bots, the most frequent use of a smartphone today.

After that, the scene appears horror, flying on the wings of the business: retention. The user must be returned, the user must be reminded of himself. And here the bots will strive to the top, once a day or a week reminding about themselves. And I very much doubt that I will be the only one who suppresses uninteresting and untimely alerts.

3. Cross-platform and low cost
But this is the absolute truth. No need for designers, no need for mobile developers for different platforms - just a lone backend who can sip a simple bot in just a day.
And all the talk about how to make money on bots, today basically boils down to what they need to do and sell.
Which leads us to the next thought.

Skim the cream

So use it. The golden time has come for customized development: given that bots are fashionable, even those who do not need them will buy them. At the same time, the cost price by the standards of software development is very low - isn't it a nice business model?

It is important to note here that I am not a fierce opponent of bots - they will really bite off their piece, and it will be quite great. I am against the fact that they are now trying to shove where they are not strongly crammed.

Bots, for the most part, are able to reduce costs, but not generate profit. Sorry, the first lines of technical support, soon you will have to retrain: answers to typical questions - this is really the place for primitive artificial intelligence, and here everything will be cool.

Creating additional value for already living products is quite difficult, but possible. That only costs Easy Order from Domino's Pizza. Ordering a pizza by sending one smile is undoubtedly wonderful. But this does not negate the need to keep the main site on which you can gaze at the pictures, pick out what kind of pizza you want today, and ask to put extra napkins.

Bots must carry value that is not in your application or website. This could be a primitive use case, a new channel of attraction to the main product, an advertising campaign with a wow effect, or something else. Do not forget to compare the planned bot with the tools that you have now. “Same as on the site, only in the messenger” - this is insufficient value.

“Stop, sleep, hello!”

Do not run to remake your product in chatbot.
You should not create a chatbot simply because now everyone is doing it.
Do not even abandon the development of cool chatbot because of some kind of article on Habré.

Bots in the form in which they are now - this is not the future, but an important step towards it. Therefore, what we are doing today, will make it clear what the next type of consumption our favorite user needs. It is then that the future will come.