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Did we really let customer service get so bad that people think this will be an improvement? My gut feeling says this will not transform companies who are bad a

Did we really let customer service get so bad that people think this will be an improvement? My gut feeling says this will not transform companies who are bad at customer service to improve, rather the ones that are already bad are now just bad with a lower headcount. Curious to hear any positive expectations for this.

ceva 1y ago
There will be none, people will be sick of AI Bots and would always prefer to speak to a human
forgotoldacc 1y ago
In my experience, there are two types of customer service. One is the type where people are working to actually help the customer and the rep is authorized to take whatever action necessary to accomplish that goal. The other is the type where the rep has no authority to do anything. They'll endlessly transfer the caller to another rep, make them wait, transfer again, make up excuses for why nothing can be done, and just do what they can to goad the caller into consenting to giving up, absolving the company of having to pay anything or provide any sort of service. I don't think number one will be replaced by AI. I think number two will be replaced by AI.
- supriyo-biswas 1y ago
  The choice between 1 and 2 is entirely at the hands of the company management, with their choice usually going towards 2 as it is cheaper.
anonymous908213 1y ago
Having had to interact with it, AI customer support is about as horrific as you'd expect. Hallucinating policies, hallucinating that they've provided a refund without actually doing so, etc. But it doesn't really matter what "people" think. Corporate sees a way to save money by employing less people, customers be damned. Sadly customer service does not seem to have any bearing on a company's success, considering Google is successful as it is when it literally does not offer any kind of customer service at all.
energy123 1y ago
s/bad/unavailable
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
> Did we really let customer service get so bad that people think this will be an improvement? Yes. One of the things that I learned, early in my career, is that the best customer service, is good product design, obviating the need for customer service. That’s something within my control. For many companies, post-sale customer service is a money sink. I remember being told that the margins on a product were so thin, that a single call from a user would wipe out the profit. But I was also never given support to produce a decent UX, because that was expensive. Damned if you do[n’t].
1dom 1y ago
I was personally designing and building these systems for FAANG like companies a few years ago. Lex was the state of the art for these sorts of systems at the time. These newer LLM based systems won't be perfect, but they'll be 10x better at free form intent recognition, and significantly less repetitive and robotic for menus and similar. I suspect the agent experience when you get to a human will be far more comprehensive, enabling real human agents to be just a little bit more helpful sounding. Realistically though, anything that could be used to improve agent or callers experience in these environments will be squeezed and stretched in the name of profit to the point where both parties suffer.
pjmlp 1y ago
Nowadays I make baby like noises until the AI gives up and routes me to a human, if I am lucky, there are services that just and simple hangup.

ceva 1y ago

There will be none, people will be sick of AI Bots and would always prefer to speak to a human

forgotoldacc 1y ago

In my experience, there are two types of customer service. One is the type where people are working to actually help the customer and the rep is authorized to take whatever action necessary to accomplish that goal. The other is the type where the rep has no authority to do anything. They'll endlessly transfer the caller to another rep, make them wait, transfer again, make up excuses for why nothing can be done, and just do what they can to goad the caller into consenting to giving up, absolving the company of having to pay anything or provide any sort of service. I don't think number one will be replaced by AI. I think number two will be replaced by AI.

supriyo-biswas 1y ago
The choice between 1 and 2 is entirely at the hands of the company management, with their choice usually going towards 2 as it is cheaper.

anonymous908213 1y ago

Having had to interact with it, AI customer support is about as horrific as you'd expect. Hallucinating policies, hallucinating that they've provided a refund without actually doing so, etc. But it doesn't really matter what "people" think. Corporate sees a way to save money by employing less people, customers be damned. Sadly customer service does not seem to have any bearing on a company's success, considering Google is successful as it is when it literally does not offer any kind of customer service at all.

energy123 1y ago

s/bad/unavailable

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago

> Did we really let customer service get so bad that people think this will be an improvement? Yes. One of the things that I learned, early in my career, is that the best customer service, is good product design, obviating the need for customer service. That’s something within my control. For many companies, post-sale customer service is a money sink. I remember being told that the margins on a product were so thin, that a single call from a user would wipe out the profit. But I was also never given support to produce a decent UX, because that was expensive. Damned if you do[n’t].

1dom 1y ago

I was personally designing and building these systems for FAANG like companies a few years ago. Lex was the state of the art for these sorts of systems at the time. These newer LLM based systems won't be perfect, but they'll be 10x better at free form intent recognition, and significantly less repetitive and robotic for menus and similar. I suspect the agent experience when you get to a human will be far more comprehensive, enabling real human agents to be just a little bit more helpful sounding. Realistically though, anything that could be used to improve agent or callers experience in these environments will be squeezed and stretched in the name of profit to the point where both parties suffer.

pjmlp 1y ago

Nowadays I make baby like noises until the AI gives up and routes me to a human, if I am lucky, there are services that just and simple hangup.