What do you think of chatbots?

Question

Hey everyone!I attended Inman Connect New York 2017 this January. A lot of the tech talks revolved around automation and chatbots. It was very interesting to see the different opinions surrounding that topic.

A lot of forward thinking professionals welcomed this new technology, although still in it's infancy. They acknowledged the huge potential it offered.

What do you think of chatbots/automation in general? Where you see it play a role in your current business model? What would you like to automate? How likely are you to adopt such technology at this point in time?

I'd love to hear your opinion on the matter!

Thanks!

Michel Moubarak · Answer

@Chris Hendricks Very valid points Chris! I agree that hiding the fact that it is a chatbot is disadvantageous to the client and the bot. In fact when it is clearly stated that you are interacting with a bot, it sets certain expectations in the client's mind where they know they cannot really ask a real estate chatbot "how is the weather like?"

They will not get disappointed if the bot did not have all the answers. And in a situation where the bot doesn't know the answer, as you mentioned, it is important to have the option to talk to a real human being at any time during the conversation!

Chris Hendricks · Answer

@Michel Moubarak ok... yea I think the biggest thing will be find the niche use of the bot for people to start a conversation with and setup the referral transfer. Also the "0" option for when they want to bypass the bot immediately and get to a live person.

In our time of premature AI, its best to acknowledge the bot is a bot and not try and hide it (as far as commercial use is concerned) and allow people to by pass the bot and the bot is cool with that.

Its like taking all the refinements from the automated phone service when you call into customer care for some company. Find the ones that have good ratings and what their automated systems do. Then find chat bots that do that well.

Michel Moubarak · Answer

@Chris Hendricks None effective for real estate. Passing the turing test is extremely difficult, to my knowledge only one artificially intelligent bot somewhat passed it, some people deny that.

Passing the turing test, in very simple terms, means a software convincing a certain number of judges that they are actually talking to human being. You can imagine how hard that is.

Chris Hendricks · Answer

@Michel Moubarak which bots are you aware of that have passed the touring test?

I guess I can quickly google that, but thinking about which ones would be better suited and effective for real estate purposes?

Michel Moubarak · Answer

@Christopher Morin I am writing a blog post about how we used the chatbot and the results we got from should be up in a couple of day on our blog. (Unfortunately, sending a link to the blog is prohibited here, even though it's for educational purposes).

Basically, we plugged it in on our Facebook page and on an SMS number. We did some advertising on Facebook and started getting leads to interact with the chatbot. It successfully gathered their search criteria and sent out respective listings that matched that.

Our website can also give you an idea of how and where the bot works. I guess you can check it out from my profile.

Christopher Morin · Answer

@Michel Moubarak Where can we find more info or data on specific applications?

Michel Moubarak · Answer

@Trevor Ewen You are right when you say RE tends to run about 20 years behind the larger business cycle, I am with you on that. As for real estate investing, or any other real estate 'sector', bots can be great at providing information to the consumer, such as market analysis an example you mentioned. Many people are online for that specific reason, gathering information. People can interact with a bot to get the info they need, it's a non-threatening way to get valuable information, as compared to 'give me your email...'. It provides value instantly and at scale!@Jeff B. Jeff very valid point, there is no point of automating if you are not going to continue what the bot has already achieved. Thinking of it from a single agent perspective is not the optimal way to utilize the technology at the moment. However, think of the costs automation can save the big brokers out there who already hire people to answer their emails/texts/calls...

@Christopher Morin Although some bots have already passed the Turing test, I think it'll be a while till a bot can do the things you mentioned. But I don't see it as either a bot can do that to be good or if not, then it's not a great technology. As you mentioned bots can be great at accelerating the dissemination/collection of information! We built and used a bot in high frequency transactions (renting/buying), emulating buyer/seller/renter scripts. The engagement and conversion rate we saw were amazing!

Christopher Morin · Answer

I think a chatbot would be about as useful as a seller questionnaire on your website or a FAQ sheet for your sellers/buyers/tenants.  Maybe you can accelerate that information collection/dissemination with a chatbot though.  Lots of people like having their question answered because they think it's unique rather than just read a FAQ.

Give me a bot that can pass the AI "Turing" test, have the ability to conduct advanced sales techniques like building rapport and closing a deal, then get it to do voice calls, that's a different story.

Jeff B. · Answer

Are you willing to be chained to your computer at home???  If you can't respond quickly, you loose the effectiveness of this 'automation' and it effectively becomes another form of email.

Trevor Ewen · Answer

@Michel Moubarak

As a technologist, I think they are interesting technology but not much more than that. It's still pretty immature from what I have seen.

For the sake of real estate investing, they most likely amount to a distraction, in my opinion. I am continuously amazed at how much of this business is conducted via phone calls and even paper letters. If you happen to need to go technical, email is usually about as far as it goes.

For market analysis, scrapers and other services can be nice. For the sake of the actual business, I think RE tends to run about 20 years behind the larger business cycle.

What do you think of chatbots?

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