6 ms·

A blog post like this is half the story. I’d like to see the results. Did your brother get more business? What were the failure modes? Did customers care if it

by pradn 6mo ago

A blog post like this is half the story. I’d like to see the results. Did your brother get more business? What were the failure modes? Did customers care if it was a bot or not?

zdragnar 6mo ago
I needed to replace my car's windshield in a hurry while on an extended trip. I called around to see who might have one in stock that could do a rush order. There was one place that had an automated voice system, and I hung up because it kept redirecting the conversation to get me to hand over more information than necessary to answer my question. If I were already an existing customer and just wanted to schedule an oil change, it'd be fine, though I'd probably just schedule on the website anyway. I'm really only going to call in if I have an unusual circumstance and actually need to speak with someone.
- tempestn 6mo ago
  Me too, but I wonder whether we're in the minority here. I'm sure there must be plenty of people who just call places to get information easily found via the web, or there wouldn't be so many automated phone systems that explain how to get information via their website.
  - dmd 6mo ago
    I know someone who works on the voice response system for $LARGEBANK. She says that more than 95% of calls are just to find out a checking account balance.
    - mystifyingpoi 6mo ago
      I believe that. Probably 95% of my support calls to online shops are about order status (aka: the website shows "in preparation" for a week already, I need to talk to a real person).
    - zdragnar 6mo ago
      That's fine, and there's no need for AI pretending to be a human, or to ask me to talk to a computer as if it is a human. Routine decision trees work really well here. In fact, decision trees are nice because they tell your more or less up front what they're capable of. What really sucks (AI or decision tree, either way) is when they don't let you easily speak with someone.
      - tempestn 6mo ago
        I'd argue a well designed AI assistant would be considerably better than a decision tree for that use case. Decision trees are slow because you normally need to wait through several options before getting to the one you're interested in. (Though sure, perhaps not if your call is literally for the most common thing.) But with an AI you could jump straight to what you're interested in. "Hi, I'm the LargeBank AI Assistant. How can I help you?" "I'd like to know the balance of my checking account." And then authenticate and get the balance as usual. Simpler and faster. Agreed that it becomes a problem if it's seen as a replacement for human agents though. In an ideal world it would actually free up the human agents for when they're actually needed. In reality it'll probably be some of each.
        forgetfreeman 6mo ago
        I'd counter with the following: por espanol marque beep if you have a quest beep for beep beep*beep*beep*beepbeep* The account balance for account ending in NNNN is: $375.86 I shouldn't have to navigate a conversation in a situation where muscle memory will take me through the phone system decision tree in seconds.
  - mikkupikku 6mo ago
    I routinely call businesses instead of using their websites, but I do this to talk to a person instead of a machine.
    - tempestn 6mo ago
      Would you call a business to ask a question that's answered on their website?
      - mikkupikku 6mo ago
        Absolutely, routinely. Often the relevant information is a pain to find on a website, but even if it isn't, the people who answer the phone often have important context like "Usually we do offer that recently but one of our suppliers..." or "We can do that, but maybe instead..." or "Oh the website isn't updated with..."
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
- zugi 6mo ago
  Automated voice systems that try to sound human but are in fact purely scripted are insanely annoying. E.g. "I think you said 'windshield', is that correct? ... Got it, thanks!" If you only have 4 options, just give me the old school list of voice options and I'll press 1 through 4, in less time, and being only moderately annoyed. But a knowledgeable AI system as described in the article - that knows what it knows and tells you when it doesn't - could work great. If it had access to inventory and calendar, it might have worked for you. The question is whether the implementation lives up to the high expectations set by the articles.
conductr 6mo ago
It also ignores easily available solutions that could have been deployed prior to AI For example, even if it shows a boost of $100,000 per month in revenue. It could likely have been achieved with a shared virtual assistant / receptionist for about $200-1000 per month (depending on exactly call volumes). So really, the revenue was already lost and going forward you’re just deciding to capture it. You've created a more complicated mouse trap than what was already available to you. The difference is saving a couple hundred dollars of labor less whatever your AI/tech costs are. I’d still go the human route because it’s more future proof and if this is a luxury service, human service is always going to feel more luxurious.
- PunchyHamster 6mo ago
  Given the article states > He’s under the hood all day. The phone rings, he can’t answer, the customer hangs up and calls someone else the mechanic is already very busy in the first place so unless he plans on expanding shop the whole thing is a waste of time
  - codegeek 6mo ago
    This is such an important point. My plumber that we always call is extremely busy and usually doesn't have availability for at least a week. He is a one man shop and prefers it that way. You call his phone, leave a voicemail and he calls you back whenever he is able to. I asked him if he wants to get more business by automating his incoming calls and he said "not really, I am already very busy and have enough business. I don't need these tools". So we cannot always assume that the business owner (especially the solo mom and pops) wants more business. Good ones are already very busy.
    - chucksmash 6mo ago
      That's wild. Plumbing especially seems like a field where if you need a plumber you need them right now, not a week from now. I guess as a plumber having enough of the type of jobs that can wait a week that you can turn away the urgent calls might be one of those feature-not-a-bug type situations.
ericmcer 6mo ago
Based on the post I would guess it hasn't been live long and gone through a ton of battle testing. I wish her luck though, things get much murkier as you start stacking more intents and it is no longer just a chatbot that funnels to text to speech. People also assume "AI" is a miracle worker now so they will be pissed when they say "Yeah just email me at charlezmcnaughton@gmail.com" and it spells it completely wrong. Like there is no reality where a transcriber is going to reliably transcribe most emails correctly, so for shit where it is vital to be 100% accurate (email, name, etc.) you have a battle on your hands. side: I found Anthropic to be prohibitively slow for live voice chat. I was getting response times in the 1-2s range which when combined with the other parts of generating a response led to 2.5s+ silent periods before responding. Groq is insanely fast if you want pure performance from an LLM. Like <200ms to complete a response.
- 6510 6mo ago
  Maybe insert some heavy breathing in the gaps.
madrox 6mo ago
This feels like the only sane response. It's undoubtedly a useful idea for the mechanic. How it performs and if it can improve remains to be seen. This is such a rorschach test for AI pessimism and optimism.

by pradn 6mo ago

A blog post like this is half the story. I’d like to see the results. Did your brother get more business? What were the failure modes? Did customers care if it was a bot or not?

zdragnar 6mo ago

I needed to replace my car's windshield in a hurry while on an extended trip. I called around to see who might have one in stock that could do a rush order. There was one place that had an automated voice system, and I hung up because it kept redirecting the conversation to get me to hand over more information than necessary to answer my question. If I were already an existing customer and just wanted to schedule an oil change, it'd be fine, though I'd probably just schedule on the website anyway. I'm really only going to call in if I have an unusual circumstance and actually need to speak with someone.

tempestn 6mo ago
Me too, but I wonder whether we're in the minority here. I'm sure there must be plenty of people who just call places to get information easily found via the web, or there wouldn't be so many automated phone systems that explain how to get information via their website.
- dmd 6mo ago
  I know someone who works on the voice response system for $LARGEBANK. She says that more than 95% of calls are just to find out a checking account balance.
  - mystifyingpoi 6mo ago
    I believe that. Probably 95% of my support calls to online shops are about order status (aka: the website shows "in preparation" for a week already, I need to talk to a real person).
  - zdragnar 6mo ago
    That's fine, and there's no need for AI pretending to be a human, or to ask me to talk to a computer as if it is a human. Routine decision trees work really well here. In fact, decision trees are nice because they tell your more or less up front what they're capable of. What really sucks (AI or decision tree, either way) is when they don't let you easily speak with someone.
    - tempestn 6mo ago
      I'd argue a well designed AI assistant would be considerably better than a decision tree for that use case. Decision trees are slow because you normally need to wait through several options before getting to the one you're interested in. (Though sure, perhaps not if your call is literally for the most common thing.) But with an AI you could jump straight to what you're interested in. "Hi, I'm the LargeBank AI Assistant. How can I help you?" "I'd like to know the balance of my checking account." And then authenticate and get the balance as usual. Simpler and faster. Agreed that it becomes a problem if it's seen as a replacement for human agents though. In an ideal world it would actually free up the human agents for when they're actually needed. In reality it'll probably be some of each.
      - forgetfreeman 6mo ago
        I'd counter with the following: por espanol marque beep if you have a quest beep for beep beep*beep*beep*beepbeep* The account balance for account ending in NNNN is: $375.86 I shouldn't have to navigate a conversation in a situation where muscle memory will take me through the phone system decision tree in seconds.
- mikkupikku 6mo ago
  I routinely call businesses instead of using their websites, but I do this to talk to a person instead of a machine.
  - tempestn 6mo ago
    Would you call a business to ask a question that's answered on their website?
    - mikkupikku 6mo ago
      Absolutely, routinely. Often the relevant information is a pain to find on a website, but even if it isn't, the people who answer the phone often have important context like "Usually we do offer that recently but one of our suppliers..." or "We can do that, but maybe instead..." or "Oh the website isn't updated with..."
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
zugi 6mo ago
Automated voice systems that try to sound human but are in fact purely scripted are insanely annoying. E.g. "I think you said 'windshield', is that correct? ... Got it, thanks!" If you only have 4 options, just give me the old school list of voice options and I'll press 1 through 4, in less time, and being only moderately annoyed. But a knowledgeable AI system as described in the article - that knows what it knows and tells you when it doesn't - could work great. If it had access to inventory and calendar, it might have worked for you. The question is whether the implementation lives up to the high expectations set by the articles.

conductr 6mo ago

It also ignores easily available solutions that could have been deployed prior to AI For example, even if it shows a boost of $100,000 per month in revenue. It could likely have been achieved with a shared virtual assistant / receptionist for about $200-1000 per month (depending on exactly call volumes). So really, the revenue was already lost and going forward you’re just deciding to capture it. You've created a more complicated mouse trap than what was already available to you. The difference is saving a couple hundred dollars of labor less whatever your AI/tech costs are. I’d still go the human route because it’s more future proof and if this is a luxury service, human service is always going to feel more luxurious.

PunchyHamster 6mo ago
Given the article states > He’s under the hood all day. The phone rings, he can’t answer, the customer hangs up and calls someone else the mechanic is already very busy in the first place so unless he plans on expanding shop the whole thing is a waste of time
- codegeek 6mo ago
  This is such an important point. My plumber that we always call is extremely busy and usually doesn't have availability for at least a week. He is a one man shop and prefers it that way. You call his phone, leave a voicemail and he calls you back whenever he is able to. I asked him if he wants to get more business by automating his incoming calls and he said "not really, I am already very busy and have enough business. I don't need these tools". So we cannot always assume that the business owner (especially the solo mom and pops) wants more business. Good ones are already very busy.
  - chucksmash 6mo ago
    That's wild. Plumbing especially seems like a field where if you need a plumber you need them right now, not a week from now. I guess as a plumber having enough of the type of jobs that can wait a week that you can turn away the urgent calls might be one of those feature-not-a-bug type situations.

ericmcer 6mo ago

Based on the post I would guess it hasn't been live long and gone through a ton of battle testing. I wish her luck though, things get much murkier as you start stacking more intents and it is no longer just a chatbot that funnels to text to speech. People also assume "AI" is a miracle worker now so they will be pissed when they say "Yeah just email me at charlezmcnaughton@gmail.com" and it spells it completely wrong. Like there is no reality where a transcriber is going to reliably transcribe most emails correctly, so for shit where it is vital to be 100% accurate (email, name, etc.) you have a battle on your hands. side: I found Anthropic to be prohibitively slow for live voice chat. I was getting response times in the 1-2s range which when combined with the other parts of generating a response led to 2.5s+ silent periods before responding. Groq is insanely fast if you want pure performance from an LLM. Like <200ms to complete a response.

6510 6mo ago
Maybe insert some heavy breathing in the gaps.

madrox 6mo ago

This feels like the only sane response. It's undoubtedly a useful idea for the mechanic. How it performs and if it can improve remains to be seen. This is such a rorschach test for AI pessimism and optimism.