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Interactive Chat Response Systems

By C Chaitanya
The chat bots have arrived. Well at least thats what popular media wants you to believe. The mental image we get when we hear about Chatbots is that of some sentient program which will converse seamlessly with humans and solve our problems.

Well, version 1 of the chatbots are anything but. Because the chatbots have been so overhyped, people seem to expect a lot from them. The fact of the matter is that chat is just another medium and we still have a long way to go before computer programs understand you and answer your queries.

But thats ok.
What we have now is a step forward. Most chatbots I have encountered are nothing more than glorified "if-then-else" programs. But as long as they answer my queries, I am happy.

So, instead of calling them chatbots, maybe if we call them Interactive Chat Response Systems(ICRs),maybe people will have lesser expectations and follow the on screen prompts and get their queries resolved.

ICRs have some advantages over IVRs. Since you can use text and images and even video, an ICR can solve a lot more problems. And since most web based systems are also text based, integrating an ICR with a backend system is much more easier. The UI/UX of an ICR is also much more natural and lesser error prone than an IVR where you have to press tones many times.

Go ahead, you can converse with our Ozonetel ICR system here

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