Hi There!
Since Microsoft said that bots are the new apps, many thousands of chatbots flooded the terrain. Happy now? I'm not. Not yet. I certainly would not be the first one who points out bot challenges. Here is a good article on that by a BBC author Dave Lee, among others. (Need to ask Sir Uriah whether he knows the guy...) In today's conversational commerce, most of the bots are pretty "shallow": they, essentially, ask what you are looking for, and when you answer, they just go ahead and search for that either on the Web or in their inventory databases. So, shallow is the depth of the conversation. They ask you 1-2 questions, and that's it. Basically, such bots are just another variety of user interface for the good old search. That is not conversational commerce, ladies! At least, it's not what I want it to be. If I know exactly what I'm looking for, I don't need a bot. I'll search, find, buy - end of story. I have my Google, and, alright, sometimes my Bing. I'm good there. What I want from a conversational commerce bot is an in-depth conversation (surprise!) about me, my situation, my context if you will. I want the bot to drive that conversation, not me. And then I want the bot to tell me what I may want to consider. That's the kind of consumer I am. Are you also like that, at least sometimes?
Cheers,
U-ristic The Algorithm