Within five years, chatbots will be the primary customer service channel for about a quarter of all organizations. That's what Gartner predicts in a new report. Currently, according to Gartner analysis, 54% of organizations already use some form of chatbot application for customer contact. It may then be one rules-based chatbot, a virtual customer assistant or an advanced conversational artificial intelligence platform.

In the next two years, according to Gartner, chatbot applications will see the largest increase in value added. At the same time, the research agency notes that the existing chatbot applications fall short. The researchers attribute this to the immaturity of chatbot technology. Also, organizations struggle to identify actionable metrics, minimizing their ability to drive chatbot evolution and expansion and limiting ROI, according to Gartner.

Still, Gartner expects that chatbot applications – if designed well – can improve the customer experience. Gartner advises customer service leaders to get started with chatbots based on use cases and start early to allow time for success. Companies should also start using the right chatbot metrics, such as goal completion percentage, dropout percentage, conversation steps and handle time. (Gartner)

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