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This connects to a broader and very interesting trend in customer service, particularly around low value transactions. We usually think of customer service as

This connects to a broader and very interesting trend in customer service, particularly around low value transactions. We usually think of customer service as "the customer has an issue, the company understands, processes and corrects the issue." However customer service is expensive, and a lot of the CS for low-end transactions has already transition to the model where "the customer has an issue, the company apologizes and rewards a consolation prize." The issue may or may not get fixed, frequently fixing it will be too expensive. The important thing is that you get the free guac and are mollified. This has happened to me as well and the customer service agent is often a sort of Frankenstein of a low wage worker plus a lot of canned text messages and a flowchart they are following. Anyway if the model for customer service is that the company doesn't fix the problem, it just provides a consolation prize, maybe a pretty simple AI can do that. It just becomes another software system where they A/B test what model does the best job of reducing the company's costs while managing to achieve passable customer feedback, build in some fraud prevention heuristics etc. For better or for worse it's the end of customer service as we know it.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
It'll vary by service. For food, most people simply want to eat, and food is relatively cheap. Restaurants don't mind giving away free food when they mess up and customers may not mind getting free food. The CS bar is very low and it's way better than having a refund on record. Something like clothes retail may not be able to do this. The customer wants specific clothes, and any ol' accessory won't suffice for a frustrated customer. A tailor may be much more efficient for a much longer time as AI overlords take over. >For better or for worse it's the end of customer service as we know it. in all fairness, CS has fallen off a cliff for the exact reasons you highlight. Companies have wanted to automate/cheaify CS for decades at this point, so I'm not surprised this is one of the first industries AI is gaining mass adoption in.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The general pattern is probably that automated customer service has improved. But, if that automated service can't solve the problem, it's almost impossible in many cases to reach a knowledgeable human who is empowered to depart from a script.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

It'll vary by service. For food, most people simply want to eat, and food is relatively cheap. Restaurants don't mind giving away free food when they mess up and customers may not mind getting free food. The CS bar is very low and it's way better than having a refund on record. Something like clothes retail may not be able to do this. The customer wants specific clothes, and any ol' accessory won't suffice for a frustrated customer. A tailor may be much more efficient for a much longer time as AI overlords take over. >For better or for worse it's the end of customer service as we know it. in all fairness, CS has fallen off a cliff for the exact reasons you highlight. Companies have wanted to automate/cheaify CS for decades at this point, so I'm not surprised this is one of the first industries AI is gaining mass adoption in.

ghaff 3y ago
The general pattern is probably that automated customer service has improved. But, if that automated service can't solve the problem, it's almost impossible in many cases to reach a knowledgeable human who is empowered to depart from a script.