| dc.description.abstract | With the advance of artificial intelligence, an increasing number of people showed great interest in and started to use instant messaging as their primary source of communication. Responding to the massive market demand, major instant messaging providers have provided Chatbot API in succession. Accordingly, high-tech companies have developed and released professional instruments specialized in natural language processing and machine learning to support the operation of Chatbot. Before long, Chatbot becomes a hot topic in the software developer community due to obvious behavior changes happening to most smart phone users--focusing on one or several Apps that they are used to using, which signifies the arrival of the “post-App” era. By messaging specific Chatbots on instant messengers, users are able to enjoy specific services, which not only overcomes the weakness of fragmented App, but unifies numerous service interfaces into one backed up by an intuitive text-conversation service. Taking advantage of the mechanism of AI and Chatbot, service providers are capable of saving the time and the labor cost spent on replying to customers and meanwhile ensures a constantly available service throughout. In addition to improving customers satisfaction, Chatbot will benefit the enhancement of consumption conversion rate with a better understanding of customers’ needs learned from frequent interactions, by which the providers are able to focus on much more valuable tasks. Generally speaking, Chatbot is believed to be able to partially take the place of humans in contact center and become a key step of customer service for companies. Therefore, successful companies would certainly develop their hybrid business models combining machines and real-life services for maximizing the benefits of both sides.
The present project is an exploratory research adopting case study method to look into the application value and the developing trend of Chatbot technology based on a comprehensive overview of the industry. Interviews were conducted with three representative companies in Taiwan’s Chatbot technology industry, by which to outline a big picture of the attitudes, perspectives and expectation held by the practitioners of Chatbot technology. In doing so, the present research is supposed to provide a clear definition of Chatbot, identify the potential and the application scope of the technology, and then anticipate the trend of development. The result of this research shows that the commercial applications of conversational services have great potential in two aspects: customer service consulting and digital marketing. Besides, some of the practitioners employ Chatbot as an essential approach of data collection for exploring business opportunities under the support of big data. | en_US |