The chatbot and the gigantic, infinite mammoth project

Implementing an AI can often be a lengthy mammoth project. In this article we show what this is and how to avoid these problems.

“I think we can end our meeting now.” said the boss and closed his laptop before taking a look around. “Wait, I think I have something on productivity.” the customer service representative suddenly said, “I was talking to a friend the other day. Her company now uses Artificial Intelligence to process customer inquiries. Maybe that would be something for us too.” she said and waited for a reaction. After a few seconds of reflection, her boss nodded: “Yes, maybe this would be a good opportunity to take a step into the modern age.”, another employee agreed. “I will look into this matter and give you a quick response.” said the boss and dismissed his employees to their workplaces. Sitting alone in his office, he decided to go on a direct search and quickly found what he was looking for: WE OFFER THE BEST CHATBOTS. The ad caught his eye immediately and he dialed the attached number to contact the company directly. After a few seconds on hold, it suddenly and without warning threw him off the line and he thought to himself: “Strange. Then I’ll just try again tomorrow. It’s not running away, is it?”

And so the next morning he sat in his seat and called the company before he even turned on his computer. However, none of the offers were suitable and so he searched again through various chatbot websites. This time he not only paid attention to fancy fonts and appealing websites, but also read product descriptions and reviews. When he came across a review by a company that bore the headline: “Gigantic Chatbot”, he decided to try this bot. The boss took his coffee, entered his office and closed the door behind him. This time his phone call started with a waiting loop again, but the employee was much nicer than the other people he had been in contact with in the last days. She told him about the products and they quickly agreed to try out a test phase, which was to start soon.” Very good. That’s settled!”, the boss thought to himself relieved and noted the delivery date in his calendar.

But the weeks went by and the Chatbot did not come. Every day, Mr. Bauer had looked into his e-mail box, his employees had spoken to him often and he simply could not tell them when the remedy would come. The long wait soon exceeded the actual delivery date and there was no notification of any trouble, so the boss decided to call the company again. “We’re sorry! We still had to train the chatbot and make a few adjustments. Have you already paid the requested amount for the introduction? Then the Chatbot will arrive soon.” an employee of the AI company put him off. The conversation about the introduction of a Chatbot had been going on for almost two months. No wonder the employees became impatient. The company grew and grew and grew and the tickets piled up in the mailbox.

One hot summer day, after a long time, a van finally pulled up to the office building. “That must be him!”, said the employees on the 20th floor when they looked out the window. “I’m going downstairs. ” one of the employees took the elevator down. When he arrived, the suppliers were busy, under great effort, they heaved huge boxes out of the car. On closer inspection it turned out that this was probably the Chatbot. He had to be gigantic, yeah. If by that you mean he was too big and heavy! “Can you give me a hand?”, one of the suppliers asked, already completely out of breath. “Yes, yes, of course!”, said the employee and helped to push out the delivery. Now his individual parts stood in front of the office building in large and small packages and dozed off in the summer sun. The suppliers asked for a signature and quickly left, fearing that they would have to take the machine to the higher floors. They left the poor employee alone with the countless boxes. “I need a little help…” said the employee after he dialed his employee’s number into the cell phone. “You all better come down here. ” he added and hung up. Moving the crates on their own proved to be an aerial act, they did not move an inch.

Almost all the company’s service staff had now gathered in front of the building and marvelled at the curious Chatbot. The employees helped with difficulty to transport the boxes into the foyer, but were at a loss when they realized that they also had to set it up themselves. “We have to take the boxes upstairs and set them up there. Otherwise the Chatbot will be even heavier!”, said one employee. And so they started loading different boxes into the elevator. However, it soon turned out that even the small parts were of considerable weight, when a group of employees dragged them into the elevator, pressed the button that was supposed to transport them to the twentieth floor and got stuck halfway up. “This can’t be happening!” thought the boss, who had meanwhile also come into the foyer. “What do we do now? The Chatbot is much too unwieldy and heavy! We’ll never get it in the elevator!” complained one of the staff. “We’ll have to get him up the stairs.” said another. The promotion of the chatbot to the office turned out to be a mammoth project. While some employees started to pull him up the stairs, the elevator slowly got going again. After some time, at least some parts of the Chatbot were at their destination.

In the stairwell, however, the people made only slow progress. And as hard as they tried, they usually only managed one or two floors a day, because sometimes parts of the Chatbot woke up from their sleep and decided to fight back because of their missing parts. The days passed and many employees came to work only for the Chatbot transport. He was supposed to help and support the customer service, but he only caused trouble. In addition, the end of the test phase was approaching and the Chatbot was not even in use - quite the opposite: it demanded the strongest commitment from the service staff. Just a few days after the Chatbot arrived, there were injured people who collapsed under the weight and heat and got heavy parts on their arms and legs. It was pure horror for the boss, but also for his employees.

However, one day, it was eleven o’clock and just before lunch, the employees, who were now returning to their normal jobs due to injury, noticed that the elevator opened. “Who’s coming? Does anyone have a meeting?”, asked a confused employee and walked towards the elevator on crutches. “Not really…”, said a woman with a plastered arm and followed him. The lamp lit up and with a “bing” the door now opened completely. A small, smiling Chatbot labeled “OMQ” came up. “What the hell is this?!”, asked the woman in surprise, watching the robot as it drove straight into the office. “I-am-the-OMQ-chatbot-and-I-help-you-want-to-serve-you”, he said in a friendly, robotic voice before he went to a seat. “Can-you-tell-me-what-to-do?” he asked and looked into the confused faces of the two employees in front of him. Even the people around him were totally confused. “How is that possible?”, another man asked and eyed the fully functional bot. He was the exact opposite of the giant chatbot; dynamic and light, bright and ready to work. Just what the company had hoped for. After some time of shock processing, the staff started to explain everything to the chatbot and within minutes he knew about everything and took care of requests. The employees were so surprised that they completely forgot to inform their colleagues. They were still busy hauling up the giant chatbot.

“What’s going on here?” asked the boss as he looked into the office and saw the chatbot. ” I think I have to explain something… ”, one of the shy colleagues suddenly took the floor, “…We had so many problems with the other chatbot that I asked around myself. Yesterday I came across a company that really wanted to help us. So we have agreed on a test phase - and today the Chatbot is already there! This is unbelievable,” he explained, thus bringing light into the darkness. “You won’t believe how we transported the Chatbot up here - not at all! He came by himself and even sat down in his seat and worked by himself!”, said one of the employees and could not hide her excitement. “That’s incredible!” said Mr. Bauer and looked at the Chatbot up close. “Good-morning!”, he said, making the boss back off. “Wait a minute, where are the other colleagues?”, he suddenly asked. After all, they wouldn’t even have to bring the gigantic Chatbot to the top. The boss was convinced from the first second on by the smoothly working OMQ Chatbot with its great construction.

And the gigantic chatbot? It reached the tenth floor at that moment.

Why are AI systems difficult to implement?

Many companies nowadays rely on AI-based systems for their customer service. However, it is often the case that AI is to be introduced simply because of its hype. In recent years, chat offers have become particularly popular, as they can easily process customer enquiries in chat. If companies introduce AI only because of the hype, they lack the added value, because often the full potential of the system is not fully exploited. Moreover, there is usually no good data basis on which to base the software. As a result, the customer service department soon has even more problems than before.

How to introduce an AI system correctly

If you have to answer recurring questions in the service with the same answers over and over again or your service agents have to enter the same actions in their backend system all the time (e.g. Change of address, etc.), an AI-based system can help to automate these processes. At OMQ, we help you to efficiently expand your service channels to provide 24/7 support to your customers. We have set ourselves the task of fundamentally improving our customer service and our system offers a remedy. We are always at your side and help you to build up your customer service.

Latest technological developments allow the integration of Chatbots without extensive training, as they are pre-trained. The system then uses the initial customer entries to adapt to the customer’s particular customer area/domain. OMQ has developed a system that also adapts to the customer’s language during use and is therefore one of the leading systems in this field. While the introduction of systems from other companies often takes a long time, because they have to be trained, based on huge amounts of data or constantly reconfigured, OMQ works out-of-the-box. This means that our software can be used directly and involves a smart learning process. It also adapts dynamically, whereas rigidly trained systems are not able to react quickly to new entries.

We are by your side

Also the handling of Artificial Intelligence has to be learned. Especially through horror stories and science fiction thrillers we have a completely different understanding and above all skepticism when it comes to AI. But you don’t have to be afraid! On our Blog or our Chatbot page you can find a lot of information that is helpful for the implementation of the system. We integrate our smart OMQ Chatbot together with our partners such as Userlike. The quick and easy integration into Userlike allows you to connect the Chatbot to your website and IM platforms such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

Finally, one more tip or rather a message to you: You are not alone - we will be happy to help you with any questions or problems. Contact us here. We look forward to seeing you :)