Your Chatbot Is a Brand Ambassador—Are You Treating It Like One?

The Gist

Chatbots evolve beyond cost savings. Once seen as call deflection tools, today’s bots are brand touchpoints powered by large language models.
Empathy still requires humans. Marketers agree that bots can simulate care—but true compassion remains a human strength in high-emotion moments.
Context defines the right mix. Customer expectations, brand values, and industry needs should guide how much to automate and when to elevate to humans.

Each month, I host a group of marketing leaders from across industries for an off-the-record conversation about the challenges and trends shaping our work. Some months we dive deep into performance data or AI trends. Others, we wrestle with shifting customer expectations.

This past month, though, turned out to be one of the liveliest discussions we’ve had in a while—centered around something deceptively simple: the chatbot.

What started as a conversation about replacing offshore support quickly evolved into a much broader dialogue about automation, empathy and the future of customer experience.

Chatbots: From Call Deflection to Brand Touchpoint
Who Gets to Be 'The Chewy of Their Industry'?
Empathy at Scale: Can Bots Truly Care?
The Future of CX Is Human And Machine

Chatbots: From Call Deflection to Brand Touchpoint

For years, chatbots have been seen primarily as a cost-saving measure—a way to deflect calls, reduce support tickets, or handle FAQs. But that’s no longer the whole story. With the rise of With the rise of large language models (LLMs), chatbots are becoming smarter, more conversational and increasingly capable of complex problem-solving.

Still, we found ourselves asking: Just because you can automate something, should you?

One marketer at my meet-up put it best: “It’s no longer a question of if you’ll use a chatbot—it’s a question of to what degree.” Some brands and industries are leaning in hard, eager to automate as much as possible. Others are being more selective, knowing that not every customer interaction should be handled by a bot.

Who Gets to Be 'The Chewy of Their Industry'?

This led us to talk about a brand that came up again and again in our discussion: Chewy.

If you’ve ever had a pet—and especially if you’ve lost one—you may already know where this is going. Chewy’s customer service is legendary. They’re known not just for resolving issues quickly, but for showing genuine compassion. They remember your pet’s name. They follow up. They’ve sent handwritten sympathy cards. They’ve refunded medications and food orders without being asked. And in my case, they simply let me cry.

I recently experienced this firsthand when my dog passed away. The customer service rep didn’t rush me off the phone. They didn’t hand me off to a bot. They just stayed on the line. Present. Patient. Kind.

That level of service cannot be replaced easily by a chatbot—at least not today. But will it be possible tomorrow? That’s the real question.

A delivered package from Chewy, the company that specializes in pet food and supplies, inside the doorway of a home in Spokane, Washington, on February 2 2023. — A Chewy delivery on a doorstep—a small box with a big reputation. For many customers, the brand represents more than convenience; it's a symbol of empathy, care and deeply human customer service that bots still can’t replicate.Kirk Fisher | Adobe Stock

Empathy at Scale: Can Bots Truly Care?

We know LLMs are getting better. They can sound empathetic. They can be They can be trained to respond with emotional intelligence. But the group agreed: we’re not there yet. True compassion—especially in moments of grief, frustration or vulnerability—still requires something only a human can bring.

And yet, not every company needs to go to the level of Chewy. The mistake is assuming that there’s one gold standard for everyone. Chewy’s brand is built on love, loyalty and connection—it makes sense that their customer experience reflects those values. For other brands, where speed or precision are more critical than emotional resonance, a well-trained chatbot might be exactly what’s needed.

The real takeaway is that context matters. Brand, industry and customer expectations all influence the right balance between automation and human interaction.

Questions Every Brand Should Be Asking About Chatbot CX Strategy

Consider these five key questions to help guide your chatbot and CX strategy.

Question	Why It Matters
What is your brand known for—and how should that shape your CX approach?	Your customer experience should reflect your core brand values, whether that’s empathy, speed, precision or something else.
Where can bots make things faster and easier without sacrificing trust?	Identifying low-risk, high-impact areas for automation can improve efficiency without eroding customer confidence.
Where do humans still need to step in—and how do you equip them to deliver exceptional moments?	Human interaction is essential for emotionally charged or complex scenarios—training and empowerment are key.
Are you gathering the data (and stories) that help you evolve your experience design?	Qualitative and quantitative insights help you continuously adapt and humanize your customer journeys.
How will you know when a bot is good enough to be there for your customers, even in their hardest moments?	Establish clear benchmarks to assess when automation can truly meet emotional and functional customer needs.

The Future of CX Is Human And Machine

If there was one unifying belief in the room, it was this: the future of customer experience isn’t bots versus humans. It’s both. It’s about designing systems where automation handles the routine—and people handle the moments that matter. It’s about knowing when to transfer seamlessly to a live agent. It’s about making sure your technology doesn’t just make things efficient, but also makes people feel seen, heard, and valued.

In that sense, the chatbot is no longer just a tool. It’s a brand ambassador. A first impression. Sometimes, even a last goodbye.

As marketers, we have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to shape how automation shows up in our customer journeys. That doesn’t mean rejecting it. It means using it wisely, creatively and, above all, humanely.

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