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Virtual recruiter answers questions

At 1,000 hits per day, the Army’s new ibot may earn himself recruiter of the year.

“We’ve been working on this for almost a year,” said Louise Eaton from the Army’s Accessions Command. “The response has been great.”

Sgt. STAR — for Strong, Trained And Ready — is a virtual soldier who answers questions at GoArmy.com. Though he can answer questions for people who are already in the military, Eaton said potential recruits will probably benefit the most from his answers.

After testing him for several months, the Army launched the square-jawed sergeant in October, but did not begin advertising him until December.

“We’re up to 1,000 sessions per day,” Eaton said. “He gives you a short answer to your question, but pulls up an associated page with more information.”

That, she said, is necessary because GoArmy.com contains 12,000 pages of information.

The ibot was created by Next IT, a software company out of Spokane, Wash. Company officials say Sgt. STAR saves the Army money by sending easily answered questions first to the ibot, then routing them to the soldiers who answer questions at the chat room.

So far, he has answered 500,000 questions with a 92 percent accuracy rate.

Eaton said 48 percent of questions are about Army life, such as:

• Can I be married in the Army?

• Can soldiers have kids?

• Can I bring my dog to basic training?

Just for the record, the answers are yes, yes and no.

“We’ve given him a sense of humor that might engage anyone,” said Maj. Bret VanPoppel, Web and interactive analyst. “I wouldn’t try swearing at him, or he’ll scold you.”

VanPoppel does, however, recommend asking if Sgt. STAR has a girlfriend.

So far, about 25 percent of people who ask Sgt. STAR a question follow up with a second question; 13 percent ask about specific jobs or careers; and 13 percent ask about the Army in general.

If the ibot can’t answer a question, he sends it to one of the “live” online recruiters — real people who can answer questions.

At first, VanPoppel said, people seemed to be logging on just to see if they could stump Sgt. STAR.

“The downside is that users expect far too much from this bot,” he said. “But, we’ve used it to improve his knowledge base.”

Sgt. STAR has become so popular that VanPoppel said to expect him to see him in areas beyond the GoArmy chatroom.

“You’ll see the same persona beyond the Web site,” he said. “He’ll appear across the Internet, maybe in advertising. We expect to see him as a 3-D likeness as soon as 2008.”