“Bots ensure that every user gets the very best experience," says Bret Greenstein, Vice President and Global Head of Artificial Intelligence, Cognizant Digital Business. "This kind of interaction allows a company to digitize the complete user experience, providing tremendous data and insights about what customers want, how they ask for help, and how they feel."

Excerpts from Forbes’ article:

“On the second floor of a high-rise office building in Richmond, Va., six bots are quietly delivering better customer service. Would you like to meet them?

Ada handles claims. Walter III specializes in documentation requests. Hedy, DaVinci, Marconi and Jude perform support functions. Together, they complete a total of 26 tasks and thousands of transactions a month at Allianz Travel Insurance.

These new customer service bots raise questions that go to the heart of the modern consumer experience. Among them: What are customer service bots? How do you know if you're dealing with a bot? Can a bot deliver better service? And, when, exactly, will the robot apocalypse happen?

When it comes to customer service, bots are a controversial topic.

Only 15% of consumers have used bots to communicate with businesses in the past 12 months, according to Drift's latest State of Chatbots report.

• A survey by CGS found many consumers still prefer human agents to chatbots. Nearly 50 percent of U.K. respondents and around 40 percent of U.S. respondents said they'd rather deal with a person.
• A UJET poll found 58% of respondents believe that chatbots were not as effective as expected.

Pull the curtain, and you'll find that companies haven't lost their minds when it comes to bots. They're adding new technology slowly and thoughtfully. Ideally, customers won't even notice they're dealing with artificial intelligence (A.I.).

Bots can automate many of the mundane, repetitive tasks that agents used to handle. Joerg Habermeier, head of product at UJET, which develops cloud contact center software, lists the ideal bot job. ‘It includes inputting information, creating and closing support tickets, and more,’ he says. ‘With the help of bots, agents can focus their time on having more personal conversations with customers and focusing on more critical issues.’”

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