More consumers prefer chat bots over humans: Survey

Nearly 70 per cent of consumers say they will progressively replace visits to a store or bank with their voice assistant within three years' time, a new survey said on Thursday.

The survey by Capgemini Research Institute found that consumers increasingly prefer to interact with bots rather than humans, especially when it comes to researching products, learning about new services or following up on post-purchase customer service queries.

"The research establishes that conversational assistants are the future of customer interactions, valued by consumers for their convenience and by companies for the operational efficiencies they enable," said Mark Taylor, Head of Customer Engagement at Capgemini Invent.

"Privacy and security also remain paramount. Since our last research, it seems there has been little change in consumer concerns about how voice assistants affect privacy and data security," Taylor added.

Over three-quarters of businesses (76 per cent) said they have realised quantifiable benefits from voice or chat assistant initiatives and 58 per cent said those benefits had met or exceeded their expectations.

Benefits included a more than 20 per cent reduction in customer service cost and a more than 20 per cent increase of consumers using digital assistants.

"Despite 76 per cent of companies having understood quantifiable benefits from voice or chat assistants, businesses need to focus on better meeting customer needs to realise the true potential," said the survey that included 12,000 consumers who use voice/chat assistants and 1,000 business executives.