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I dislike how this makes the suggestion that the issue is that chatbots are "emontionless" instead of just terrible. I'm looking for something that will solve

by tpeo 9y ago

I dislike how this makes the suggestion that the issue is that chatbots are "emontionless" instead of just terrible. I'm looking for something that will solve my problem, not something that will pat me in the back and ask if I want to talk about it.

brudgers 9y ago
Customer service tends to be terrible in the consumer space. Most consumer goods and services good customer service doesn't improve profits because "consumer" usually implies commodity economics. On top of that, a lot of customer service calls boil down to wasteage. People call because they want something for free or a reduced price. With a commodity, there's no need to build loyalty for products that are primarily sold based on initial cost. The quintessential commodified consumer product is Google search. Chatbots would be a step up. But that is not the direction customer service is heading...working in a bookstore now requires following a script for pitching savings cards and magazine subscriptions, not selling books.
- tpeo 9y ago
  I'm curious. What are you calling a "commodity"?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kirykl 9y ago
I experienced this with human customer support recently. I started asking questions to sort out what key piece of info I was not communicating. "Why would your company accept that request if it's impossible to fulfill?" Instead of working to solve with logic the rep responded to every question "oh yea it's too bad I'm so sorry that happened" I think they're just abused by angry customers so much it's easier to just appease emotionally than solve unreasonable requests
- rdiddly 9y ago
  The (attempt at) emotional comfort is just weird to me. The relationship I want with them is "I give you money, you do what you promised." Simple! So if I'm calling them, most likely the conversation is gonna boil down to, "Hey it appears you're not succeeding at doing what you promised" or "Hey can you do this other optional thing you promised?" or more rarely "Hey for some reason I can't seem to successfully give you money." Reading your story it actually seems like it'd be hard not to feel patronized. Which I hadn't considered before. Usually it slips by me, masked behind my basic assumption of good intentions, and my tendency to just ignore anything scripted. Like at the onset of "Wow yikes ouch too bad I'm sorry that happened for you" my brain says --- 2017-09-03-122634 -- irrelevant data stream -- waiting ---
zby 9y ago
Maybe the point is that it is not about gathering information - but rather about negotiating how much the company would bend to the customer will.

by tpeo 9y ago

brudgers 9y ago

Customer service tends to be terrible in the consumer space. Most consumer goods and services good customer service doesn't improve profits because "consumer" usually implies commodity economics. On top of that, a lot of customer service calls boil down to wasteage. People call because they want something for free or a reduced price. With a commodity, there's no need to build loyalty for products that are primarily sold based on initial cost. The quintessential commodified consumer product is Google search. Chatbots would be a step up. But that is not the direction customer service is heading...working in a bookstore now requires following a script for pitching savings cards and magazine subscriptions, not selling books.

tpeo 9y ago
I'm curious. What are you calling a "commodity"?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

kirykl 9y ago

I experienced this with human customer support recently. I started asking questions to sort out what key piece of info I was not communicating. "Why would your company accept that request if it's impossible to fulfill?" Instead of working to solve with logic the rep responded to every question "oh yea it's too bad I'm so sorry that happened" I think they're just abused by angry customers so much it's easier to just appease emotionally than solve unreasonable requests

rdiddly 9y ago
The (attempt at) emotional comfort is just weird to me. The relationship I want with them is "I give you money, you do what you promised." Simple! So if I'm calling them, most likely the conversation is gonna boil down to, "Hey it appears you're not succeeding at doing what you promised" or "Hey can you do this other optional thing you promised?" or more rarely "Hey for some reason I can't seem to successfully give you money." Reading your story it actually seems like it'd be hard not to feel patronized. Which I hadn't considered before. Usually it slips by me, masked behind my basic assumption of good intentions, and my tendency to just ignore anything scripted. Like at the onset of "Wow yikes ouch too bad I'm sorry that happened for you" my brain says --- 2017-09-03-122634 -- irrelevant data stream -- waiting ---

zby 9y ago

Maybe the point is that it is not about gathering information - but rather about negotiating how much the company would bend to the customer will.