I work on a chatbot that provides support. I also do analytics for all of our support channels.
Businesses do not want higher abandonment, and deploying automation reduces abandonment. When we deployed a chatbot on our phone support channel, abandonment went down 20% (this includes people that abandon inside the chatbot).
The reason why chatbots exist and why they aren't going away is because they reduce support costs. Our chatbot resolves 40% of issues. That translates to millions of dollars in savings.
I'm not trying to defend chatbots by saving they improve customer experience. In most cases they hurt customer experience. It's too tempting for corporations to resist though. Sooner or later someone is going to ask why support costs are so much higher than their competitors.
