Are chatbots the new face of customer service? From what we are seeing, it certainly looks like it could be a viable alternative. Companies like Pizza Hut have launched their own chatbots, Facebook Messenger has also introduced the featured, and if you might recall, back in April Skype also brought some chatbots on board its platform.
The good news for Skype users is that it looks like Microsoft will be continuing its push with bots because they have just announced new bots they’ll be adding to the mix. According to Skype, these are what they are calling “partner-inspired” bots, which basically means that these bots are linked to existing services.
“Today, we are introducing a series of partner-inspired bots into the Skype Bot directory on our Android, Windows, iOS, Mac and Web apps. Currently, we are focused on creating Skype Bots in our directory that deliver interesting experiences, in a variety of scenarios.” According to the company, these new bots will cover services like Skyscanner, StubHub, IFTTT, Hipmunk and Spock.
Essentially the bots will act as the in-between for users and the service, so for example instead of going to Skyscanner’s website to check for prices, you can ask the bot to do it for you, and so on (see the example in the video below). The bots should already be live so as long as you have the latest version of Skype installed, you should be good to go.
Filed in . Read more about AI (Artificial Intelligence), Apps, Microsoft and Skype.