[chimprich]

I like the chat help interface. It's almost as good as Asus', which I had the misfortune to be trying to use yesterday.

https://www.asus.com/uk/

It's genius. It's got a little "online services" icon with a friendly smiley face with a microphone and headphones.

You click on it, expecting an interactive chat but what you actually get is a photo of someone smiling hugely with headphones on and a laptop open, and a sidebar where you can search their inadequate help documents.

I'm glad it's a parody or it would be really insulting.

[phito]

Oh I definitely recognise this, it's using Microsoft's Bot Framework (https://dev.botframework.com/). I had to make a chatbot for a hospital during my end of studies internship.

I still don't get why people want chatbots as they're terrible UI, so frustrating to use even when they're made properly.

[davnicwil]

People don't want chatbots - businesses want(ed) them because they offer(ed) the promise of much cheaper support. Of course that's predicated on them working at all, which in practice they don't, obviously. Think that message has filtered through enough now that the hype surge that was in full swing a couple of years ago seems to have petered out again.

[Macha]

It seems to be a recurring pattern. Business introduce some new form of support that customers like because it means less waiting times and less automated gatekeeping, but then companies look to put that back in to save costs. Web chat was the previous quick way in, but now that's been automated and reduced to the same obtuse trees as phone or email support so now social media is the fast/less BS option. That too will pass.

[rorygibson]

"People don't want chatbots"

I'm working with a successful ecommerce company who have hugely improved conversions on their (high touch, bespoke but sold online) product by introducing a chatbot.

For some use cases, customers like them very much indeed.

[davnicwil]

I guess customers want them to the extent they help them achieve their task without hassle and/or them realising it's a chatbot, pretty much just as well as a human would.

In some use cases, I suppose this might be possible (though I've not ever seen this - would love to see your example if you can name it!) but in most it's not, yet.

[aasasd]

Doesn't seem to have petered out if you look at freelance marketplaces—because you'll see a lot of chatbot writing jobs.

I wonder if I'm currently missing some slice of web life by not using any ‘support’ chat interfaces ever.

[breischl]

Come on, who doesn't want an interface that takes 5 times as long to use, misunderstands what you want most of the time, and trades clicking for typing and autocorrect fails? It's great!

[garaetjjte]

I find it funny that stock photo with laptop have ASUS logo copypasted on it. https://icr-emea.asus.com/webchat/image/cover-photo.jpg

[lone_haxx0r]

It appears that it isn't even aligned.

[argd678]

Asus definitely has the better cookies overlay at 80% of the screen on mobile.