<story><title>So you want to build your own open source chatbot</title><url>https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/07/so-you-want-to-build-your-own-open-source-chatbot/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kykeonaut</author><text>If I am trying to contact a business, it is because I have a question that their site wasn&amp;#x27;t able to answer, or I need to contact a representative to do something I can&amp;#x27;t do on the website (think canceling a service).&lt;p&gt;Having a talking FAQ page is, in my opinion, trying to compensate for lacking UX practices, and chances are that if the business didn&amp;#x27;t include the information I am seeking for in their website, they won&amp;#x27;t include it in the chatbot.&lt;p&gt;That said, I think that chatbots could assist customers in getting in contact with the right representative, but trying to have chatbots as a wall between getting human help is imho an anti-pattern</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zlwaterfield</author><text>I’ve worked on a few support sites for companies over the years. In all my research I found &amp;gt;40% of customers never look for the answer before contacting support. That’s why you’ll see sites add a bunch of questions with recommendations to answers based on your description before you can contact support. Even AWS support does this.&lt;p&gt;Bots may be annoying but they can also save the company tons in custer support costs. I’m for it if the UX is good and I can quickly contact an agent if the bot can’t answer my question. This is assuming the bot won’t hallucinate and just tell me random fake facts.</text></comment>
<story><title>So you want to build your own open source chatbot</title><url>https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/07/so-you-want-to-build-your-own-open-source-chatbot/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kykeonaut</author><text>If I am trying to contact a business, it is because I have a question that their site wasn&amp;#x27;t able to answer, or I need to contact a representative to do something I can&amp;#x27;t do on the website (think canceling a service).&lt;p&gt;Having a talking FAQ page is, in my opinion, trying to compensate for lacking UX practices, and chances are that if the business didn&amp;#x27;t include the information I am seeking for in their website, they won&amp;#x27;t include it in the chatbot.&lt;p&gt;That said, I think that chatbots could assist customers in getting in contact with the right representative, but trying to have chatbots as a wall between getting human help is imho an anti-pattern</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thelastparadise</author><text>I operate a 4fig&amp;#x2F;month micro SaaS.&lt;p&gt;We use a chat bot because we simply do not have the support staff to answer your questions.&lt;p&gt;So you get the bot --it&amp;#x27;s either that or nothing.&lt;p&gt;But what we do do, is monitor the bot logs. If a function is missing from the product or website, we add it so that future users can fully self-service.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s important to note, users are free to cancel their account at any time and&amp;#x2F;or get a refund.</text></comment>