Bots Hamburg Meetup — Recap from 15.06.2016
What are chatbots anyway? How can we already use them today and what are your future use cases? We actively discussed and discussed these and many other questions yesterday as part of the first Hamburg Chatbot Meetup.
Around 25 people met at Betahaus Hamburg (thanks Betahaus!) Arrived on the hill to talk to us about what is perhaps the most current topic in application development.
My colleagues Florian and Patrick moderated the exciting discussion session lasting almost 1 1/2 hours and answered the numerous questions. But it started with a short presentation by Jannis Menebröcker, who with his agency Space & Lemon has developed a holistic process for designing, marketing and developing a chatbot. Especially in the early phase of a new platform, it is important to explain the added value to potential customers and to show advantages that can be achieved by developing chatbots. This would go beyond actual development and as it should turn out even more often in the evening: a good concept is more important than ever!
Thanks again to Jannis!
As a result, we went into an open discussion, which led to some interesting topics of conversation.
A fundamental question of the evening was whether chatbots actually have the potential to replace apps. Even though it is probably too early to answer this question, the potential of this new platform quickly became apparent.
- With 900 million users, the Facebook Messenger platform is perhaps the largest in the world.
- In contrast to an iOS or Android app and from your own websites, a third entity (Facebook, WhatsApp, Slack) takes care of the underlying infrastructure. A chatbot developer doesn't have to worry about whether their application will work on the countless, different systems of their users.
- The very reduced interface of a chat creates very small hurdles for the user, as he does not have to learn any new operating concepts. However, this aspect poses new challenges to the concepts behind the bots in order to present more complex functionalities in an intuitive way.
- The hurdle of using a chatbot is very low, as nothing needs to be installed. The messenger application is already available on almost all smartphones and computers, and bots fit smoothly into this infrastructure.
However, bot developers will also have to deal with similar problems as all other apps and websites: How do my users actually find the bot?
The consensus of the evening was that there are already a few very nice bots, but the real killer application that will actually draw the attention of the masses to bots does not yet exist.
At the moment, publishers in particular are pouncing on bots, as the use case is relatively simple and the content is already ready. Basically, however, it is just a new interpretation of the RSS/newsletter model.
So what can it be? The bot that brings bots to the public and really uses the unique advantages of the medium?
The core difference of a bot compared to other apps and websites is that the form of communication with the customer is a dialogue. It is essential to understand this aspect and to consider it when designing bots. How do I want to talk to my customers? How can I prevent my customer from becoming frustrated because they don't feel understood? How do I really create added value for the customer?
In this context, it is also important to mention that bots are not without risk. As an established company, when can I take the risk of having part of my communication taken over by an algorithm? No one wants the story of Microsoft's Tay Twitter Bot repeat and offend your users. How do you communicate that a bot is currently talking to the customer? All questions that could be discussed but could not really be answered yet.
It quickly became clear in the evening that the bot infrastructure offers exciting opportunities not only for developers. Some participants have already implemented simple bots without programming knowledge. For this, tools such as Chatfuel or Manychat are used, which offer a kind of modular system for chatbots. The opportunities for startups as well as companies that want to validate business models at an early stage are obvious. The barrier to entry is nowhere near as high as with an app and you are quickly very close to the target group. However, the capabilities of these tools are still reduced to just a few use cases. When things get more complicated, you have to get involved yourself.
The views on the current state of bots were also particularly interesting. The thesis was thus put forward that the true potential cannot yet be exhausted at all. This involves not only having one-to-one conversations with a bot, but using bots as a tool in conversations with other people. “Hey, calendar bot when do we [the conversation participants] have time together for lunch? ”
I would like to thank everyone who took part last night. We were very pleased with the positive response and your lively discussions. We also enjoyed the final networking over a few beers. I hope that we as a community can build on this and find ways to develop, design and market bots together in the next month with new ideas, new experiences and new perspectives.
Until next time at Bots Hamburg Meetup!
