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The majority of consumers prefer to make contact with a human employee when they have questions for a company. This is shown by HubSpot’s research among 666 consumers. 48.7 percent say it doesn’t matter whether they talk to a person or to a chatbot, as long as the question is answered correctly.

Only 4.8 percent of consumers say they prefer a chatbot or a virtual assistant in the survey.

Nearly 45 percent say there is a lack of personal contact when talking to chatbots. Consumers also say they have more confidence in people than in chatbots when it comes to the way their data is handled. On a scale of 10 people get the number 7, chatbots get a 5.7. Another problem, according to the respondents, is that their question is often misunderstood by bots and no nuance is given to it.

Advantages

However, respondents also say they see benefits in communicating with a chatbot. 56.1 percent indicates the advantage of saving time. They feel like they’re more likely to have contact with a bone than with a human worker. Among consumers between the ages of 18 and 30, more than 80 percent say they enjoy direct contact with a bone.

That finding is consistent with a Usabilla study in the United States earlier this month. In this, 35 percent said that they mainly use a chatbot to save time. Consumers also expect that various tasks can be carried out without human help. It is, for example, about making agreements. In the event of problems, consumers do want human help.

In that survey, 70 percent of the respondents said they had used chatbots before. 60 percent of people who have not yet done so say they are comfortable doing so. Only 18 percent always prefers a human worker.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.