One of the first big brands in the world to wholeheartedly
embrace chatbots was KLM, the national Dutch airline, which is often hailed for
being an early adopter to new technology.
The company has one of the best
chatbots available, and it has a good reason for caring so much about it:
the company employs more than 230 dedicated agents to reply on social media. With
more than 100,000 mentions publicly every week, the sheer
impact of being able to quickly solve simple questions with the use of
artificial intelligence and chatbots is clear.
KLM has invested heavily in both chatbots and A.I. tools to
solve messages as quickly and precisely as possible, but has spent a lot on
developing marketing tools as well — to the point that you can book almost your
entire flight via Facebook Messenger!
Not only is the KLM chatbot a fantastic thing to use, it
actually seems easier than booking via the website, which can often be clumsy
and confusing as you're trying to figure out which button will do what you want
it to. Here's what makes KLM's bot so good, and how other brands could learn.
DON'T JUST ASSUME A SINGLE INTENT
This often leads to high failure rates as people just argue
with the bot, which doesn't understand their request, or they close the
conversation immediately. KLM's bot understands this risk, so immediately
offers the user a choice of where to go; is the query about support, booking a
flight or something else? Even if the other options end up with a human, this is a
fantastic way to figure out where to route the user internally without any
humans involved.
HANDLE AMBIGUOUS RESPONSES
If you choose Book Your Flight, which is what this bot is
made for, KLM lets you type where you'd like to go. This is basically every bot
developer's worst nightmare, because users could say anything right now, and
the bot is left to interpret it based on a very limited understanding of what
could happen next.
Even if you get the user to write something you’re expecting
into the text box, most people tend to type something vaguer than you’d hope at
this point — leaving it with you to figure out the specifics of their answer. A
good bot development project — particularly from the UX writing side — will
consider all of the different weirdness that could eventuate here, and KLM did
this right.
Not only did KLM ask for more specifics politely, they
nailed combining the two separate data points to figure out what I meant,
rather than forcing me to enter the full destination myself all over again.
YOUR WORDS ARE EVERYTHING
When you’re building a chatbot, your words are everything.
They’re the beginning and end of your user’s experience with you, so you can’t
afford any misinterpretations, dead ends or confusing phrasing.
Having written copy for a number of chatbots, and your use
of language should be the principle consideration before writing a single line
of code. I noted a number of places that KLM uses great copy to guide the user,
so let’s walk through them.
1. KLM sets expectations immediately by making it clear it’s
a bot through the use of an emoji and in a friendly tone explaining its own
limitations. By doing this, the user already feels comfortable, but understands
something might go wrong, so is far more willing to be patient because they
know it’s not perfect yet.
2. KLM uses a smart, subtle trick to win points from users:
repeating what the bot understands to be the correct query back to them before
continuing. Once you’ve figured out dates and destination, for example, KLM
spells the search out, offering an opportunity to correct any mistakes. This
may seem tedious, but there’s a great trick behind this.
Think of the times you’ve used Siri and how frustrating it
is when she gets it wrong; if a computer is trying to be human and makes a
mistake, the illusion is ruined immediately. By leveraging subtle language
cues, KLM able to avoid the computer giving the wrong answer before it happens,
and maintain the illusion that we’re getting everything right, even if it isn’t
perfect.
3. KLM does a great job of helping you along the way with the
wording it uses. When you’re given the chance to respond in free form, the
chatbot guides you on how it expects you to respond. Dates are particularly
hard, because there’s so many formats humans can respond in.
These types of cues avoid frustration on the user’s part and
make it easier on the developer’s side: predictable input is the best input,
and trying to figure out if 11/04/2018 is the 11th of April 2018, or 4th of
November 2018 is impossible if you’ve got customers around the world.
IT’S USEFUL BEYOND THE FIRST INTERACTION
A common area these bots fall over in is a lack of awareness
of the user beyond that first interaction. Often chatbots don’t understand who
you actually are because they are unable to access data from existing backends.
KLM thought of this, and their bot is able to be useful
beyond day one: you can choose to receive travel updates in one place and get
your boarding pass without leaving it. While it’s still fairly limited, this a
great example of extending a conversational interface beyond just that first
chat, and keeping users engaged long-term.
IT’S HARDER THAN YOU THINK
When Facebook launched its chatbot platform, there was a
deluge of different bots to try, but many of them were a frustrating
experience. As it turned out, many brands jumped on the hype train without
really considering the nuances involved in building a great experience.
KLM is a rare example of a chatbot done well. While it’s not
perfect, it’s a fantastic way to search for flights that doesn’t feel more
cumbersome to use than its app or website — which is the entire point in the
first place.
If you’re considering building a chatbot, sweat the details
and more than anything else, focus on the words you use. Your phrasing is the
beginning and end of a great chatbot story, and it’s key to whether or not it
succeeds.
But, don’t take our word for it. You can try
KLM’s chatbot here.
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