Even more now than when we discussed it in 2019, chatbots are all the rage. Following up from our previous conversation on chatbots, Kern Elliott of iGovTT is back to tell us, among other things:  how chatbots are now being used; the biggest mistake or oversight organisations are making with chatbots; and the steps organisations should be considering to take their chatbot game to the next level.

 

This episode is also available in Apple iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify (NEW!!) and on Stitcher!

By now, and if you engage in a lot of online activity, you may have interacted with a chatbot (bot) without knowing it. On many websites, there are now text-based chatbots that can answer basic questions you may have, and essentially are part of the organisation’s customer service response. Should the bot not understand you, or is unable to answer or resolve your issue, typically, the matter is escalated to human agent, who should be able to determine how best to proceed.

Thanks to the pandemic and organisations are leveraging technology more than they ever have. They are also embracing automation and artificial intelligence (AI), in order to optimise processes and to make their operations more efficient. According to leading research and advisory firm, Gartner, three trends will have an impact on the future of work:

  • AI will predominate in routine work automation
  • Digital dexterity (of workers and in the workforce) will become critical; and
  • Hybrid working (which could include remote working, flexitime, etc.) with a distributed workforce.

Chatbots are just one of the ways, and arguably, a good entry point for organisations to start integrating automation and AI into their processes and work flows.

In 2019, we started a conversation on chatbots on the Podcast. Just over 18 months later, and due to our growing reliance of technology, we thought is useful to follow up, and to try to determine what changes, if any, have occurred here in the Caribbean region.

 

Kern Elliott

Introducing our guest

Kern Elliott is the Team Lead of the Solutions Architect Office, at the National Information and Communication Technology Company Limited, more commonly known as iGovTT, and has been with the organisation for over 15 years. In his current role, Kern leads a multidisciplinary team of policymakers, developers, designers and analysts, which together design and develop applications to be used by various Ministries and State Agencies. iGovTT’s  primary business is the design, procurement, project management, implementation and maintenance of enterprise-wide and major ICT solutions for the Government of Trinidad and Tobago.

In addition to his work at iGovTT, Kern is speaker and mentor. His areas of expertise include system analysis, JavaScript development, data analytics, chatbot and live chat development and implementation.

 

Insights into our conversation

Kern is passionate about chatbots, and the role they can play in organisations – especially for routine and repetitive tasks, which although simple, may be tedious and taxing to humans. During this conversation, as he had done the last time, Kern emphasised that a chatbot is only as good as it is programmed. Moreover, and perhaps just as important, provision ought to be made for the continual refinement of the bot’s understanding and responses, which ideally, should be based on its interaction with humans.

Other questions posed during this conversation included the following.

  1. Please tell us again what chatbots are, and typically, how and when they used?
  2. Since we last spoke in 2019, what has been your observations of how chatbots are being applied now, as opposed to a few years ago?
  3. Are customers getting more comfortable with chatbots? How have people been responding?
  4. How are chatbots evolving? Are there any changes in the role that they have been playing in organisations?
  5. Are chatbots being integrated into organisational workflows in meaningful ways? What have been your observations?
  6. For organisations that are using chatbots, what might be the biggest mistake or oversight they are making?
  7. How easy or difficult is it to collect and analyse the data generated for chatbots to learn, and ultimately for them to learn well?
  8. If an organisation is using a chatbot, what would be the next logical steps it should be considering to move to the next level?

 

We would love to hear from you!

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Select links

Below are links to some of the organisations and resources that either were mentioned during the episode, or otherwise, might be useful:

 

 

Image credits: K Elliott; xresch (Pixabay); Pete 😀 (Pixabay)

Music credit: Ray Holman