{"id":7704,"date":"2017-04-05T20:47:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T20:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/?p=7704"},"modified":"2017-04-11T20:12:49","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T20:12:49","slug":"bing-chatbot-answering-local-search-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/bing-chatbot-answering-local-search-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Bing has a chatbot answering local search questions"},"content":{"rendered":"
Bing has added a chatbot to help users with some of its local search results for restaurants in the Seattle area. After getting a tip from a reader, I was able to reproduce the chatbot option in Bing\u2019s desktop search results, but not in its iOS app nor in the mobile browser search results.<\/p>\n
The new feature appears at the bottom of the listing for some individual restaurants in the cities of Redmond (where Microsoft is based) and nearby Bellevue, Washington \u2014 both are just outside of Seattle. I\u2019ve seen it on about six to eight different searches for specific restaurants, such as Monsoon in Bellevue<\/a>. Below the regular business information is an invitation \u2014 Questions? Ask Monsoon bot for help<\/em> \u2014 with a \u201cChat\u201d call-to-action button to the right.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no immediate help or guide telling me what kinds of questions I can ask, so the chat experience is clunky at first. But once you get started, the chatbot offers a number of different questions you can ask, including these:<\/p>\n As I said, the chat was semi-helpful \u2014 as is often the case when dealing with chatbots \u2014 and you have to learn how to phrase things if you\u2019re not going to use the suggested questions. Here are some screen shots of my conversation with Monsoon bot:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was able to get this chatbot feature to appear for about six to eight different restaurants in both Redmond and Bellevue, Washington, but it didn\u2019t show up for any of the five to 10 Seattle restaurants I searched for Tuesday night. It also didn\u2019t show up for any hotel searches in any of those same cities.<\/p>\n At this point, we don\u2019t know if this is a limited test or something that\u2019s live for anyone to use. We don\u2019t know if it\u2019s purposely active only for restaurants near Bing\u2019s headquarters. And we don\u2019t know if Bing has plans to use this chatbot feature more widely in the future. We\u2019ve sent questions to Bing to learn more, and we\u2019ll update this article if and when we do.<\/p>\n Postscript:<\/strong> A Bing spokesperson declined to answer the questions above about whether this is a test, how widely it\u2019s available, etc. The company did provide this statement: \u201cWe\u2019re constantly updating and refining the Bing search experience. We\u2019ll share more information when available.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by\u00a0Matt McGee\u00a0for SearchEngineLand Skype-powered chatbot is showing up as an assistant to help searchers learn about restaurants in the Seattle area. Bing has added a chatbot to help users with some of its local search results for restaurants in the Seattle area. After getting a tip from a reader, I was able to reproduce the … Read moreBing has a chatbot answering local search questions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,36,37,119,39,2,42,148,114,89,44],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/bing-maps-green-ss-1920-min-1024x576-min.png","yoast_head":"\n
\n Clicking the button pops open a chat window that says it\u2019s powered by Microsoft-owned Skype, and perhaps because I have a Skype account and the software on my desktop computer, the chat window recognizes me by name.<\/p>\n\n