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> If the AI is cheap enough, everyone will be able to speak to a "representative" without waiting on hold or navigating a menu. Sometimes people want to "speak
by thecrash 2y ago
> If the AI is cheap enough, everyone will be able to speak to a "representative" without waiting on hold or navigating a menu.
Sometimes people want to "speak to a representative" because they're too lazy to navigate a menu or search, and would prefer to use a natural language interface. AI will definitely help with that.
But for most people - especially younger people - our interface desires are not the issue. We prefer navigating a menu interface to having a conversation with anyone - AI or human!
We want to "speak to a representative" because the automated interfaces are deliberately designed not to let us do the thing we need to do. The customer service representative is not our servant, they're a guard who holds the keys to the door we need to enter.
Will companies give those keys to an LLM? I doubt it. It's certainly possible to trick CSRs, but it's easier (and more automatable) to trick LLMs. Instead, we'll get LLMs which claim to be CSRs but don't actually have any keys, bringing us back to the time-honored demand "I want to speak to a human!"
- TheCleric 2y agoYeah I usually want to speak to a human for the exact thing AI usually sucks at: a rare occurrence that I need someone to manually intervene in.
- ajdude 2y agoI had a package that I ordered on Amazon recently get lost in the mail. The order page on the website stated that I can ask for a refund now There was no obvious button to click to actually do so. When I tried to reach out to customer support, I found that Amazon had completely replaced their chat support with an AI. Every single time I tried to explain to the AI that my package was late and I needed a refund, replied that if the package doesn't arrive by [date that was the previous day] Then I can come back and ask for a refund. I kept trying to explain to the bot that the date it provided me has passed but it wouldn't listen and just kept throwing me through a loop. In the end I had a request that Amazon call me and the representative solved the problem in less than five minutes.
- cbanek 2y ago> We want to "speak to a representative" because the automated interfaces are deliberately designed not to let us do the thing we need to do. The customer service representative is not our servant, they're a guard who holds the keys to the door we need to enter. Nailed it. A lot of times you're doing something special or off the well beaten path, or they just don't want you to do it (like closing your account). Voice recognition usually just seems to listen to single words to try to route you to to someone. Either way, usually by that time the company doesn't care, they've got your money.
- abracadaniel 2y agoI wonder if the beaten path is a small minority of customers with repetitive issues, and therefore the majority of customers are off the beaten path when they call. A distribution of call types that is a small spike and a very long tail.