Temper expectations for recruitment chatbots to mitigate failure

John Sumser visited a company's website recently and was greeted by a chatbot asking if it could help him. Sumser, an analyst and editor-in-chief of HR Examiner, answered by asking for the company's address. The chatbot didn't have that information, transferred him to customer service, and he ended up leaving a voicemail that went unanswered for 10 days. For organizations looking to use recruitment chatbots, Sumser's story offers important lessons about the limitations of this emerging technology, in particular the discord that results when expectations and results don't match up. "When you install a chatbot, you deliver the expectation that you're going to have the responses to these questions in machine time, not human time," Sumser said. "If you don't set the expectations properly, what you get is damaged relationships with people."