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BFM+Exclusive
The Psychological Reason You Hate Chatbots
10 min
about 
Skills you'll build
Reducing friction by setting clearer expectations
Avoiding ambiguity the that hurts conversions
Designing handoffs that feel comfortable
"Peter, we're thinking about adding a chatbot into our customer support stack, what'd you think from a UX perspective?".
"Well, do you enjoy using chatbots?, I replied.
They laughed, and with that, my client dismissed the idea.
There's a strong argument that chatbots are mostly a one-sided revolution; increasing efficiency for businesses, whilst generally irritating consumers.
To be clear, they can be fantastic—Amazon's is exceptional.
But broadly, virtual agents, decision trees and ChatGPT-powered conversations aren't exactly the future of customer service that we were promised.
So this month I've been putting a selection of chatbots through their paces; here are some of the subtle reasons you find them annoying.
And ultimately, some tips for how to choose and implement chatbots (think; AI) into your customer experience journey.
Case study
Written by Peter Ramsey
Published
Last edited
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