What practical limitation defined the initial cost-benefit analysis for deploying early rule-based web customer support bots?

Answer

Prioritizing volume deflection over query complexity resolution.

When businesses first deployed rule-based, web-based customer support bots in the mid-1990s, the economic calculation was highly focused and restrictive. Since these bots functioned via explicit decision trees and could not handle linguistic variation, developers had to meticulously map and build rock-solid answers only for the most common and repetitive queries, typically the top 20%. The practical limitation acknowledged was that the primary benefit derived from this approach was deflecting a large *volume* of simple questions away from human staff. Complex or unusually phrased queries would inevitably cause the bot to fail, requiring handover, thus the effort prioritized maximizing simple query deflection rather than attempting to resolve interactions with high complexity.

What practical limitation defined the initial cost-benefit analysis for deploying early rule-based web customer support bots?

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