Situation
There was a time when chatbots were marketed as a mystical solution to fix all clients problems, no matter how big or small. Chatbots are the right solution to a specific set of circumstances, but they’re not a panacea. nor may they be suitable for the problem at hand.
After being approached by our Emerging Technology team to institute a full-fledged chatbot to support key transactional flows on the site, I had questions: “Is a chatbot what we actually need?”, “How much time and effort will we need to invest?”, “Is this the most lightweight solution to start?”
Task
In order to better communicate my concerns to my Product Owner and enter into a more meaningful conversation with the Emerging Tech team, I needed a way to show the different efforts that go into maturing a chatbot. Thus, the CAMEL Model (named for its two peak effort humps) was born.
Action
The CAMEL Model shows increasing levels of engagement with a client, starting from foundational microcopy to contextual FAQs, to a fully personified chatbot. Included are examples pulled from other work to show the product owner’s actual examples of how these solutions are in place today.
Result
After looking over the Model and speaking with development, our product owner decided that we didn’t need to go to Level 5 (much to Emerging Tech’s chagrin). Instead, we landed on Contextual FAQs being the right solution to his problem.
Below: The full CAMEL Model, including examples referencing my work from other areas on the site.
