The author argues that customers do not actually want chat bots for customer service, contrary to what companies claim. Chat bots can only handle simple, routine queries, but for complicated issues customers want to speak to a human representative. Companies are pushing chat bots to reduce costs and increase profits, without considering the negative impact on customer experience. The author only sees chat bots as useful for customers when used to cancel subscriptions that require contacting customer service, showing how frustrating the current system is. The author believes we should build technology that customers actually want and would appreciate, rather than focusing on bad experiences or defending against them.

  •  ollien   ( @ollien@beehaw.org ) English
    9•1 year ago

    Tangential, but my last employer (US based) outsourced L1 IT to a call center in India, and it was maddening. They didn’t know very much beyond the script, and often you just had to say the right words to get your issue escalated, but it would always take a day or so to get called back. It drove me nuts as an engineer, but I’m sure it works fine for people who are less familiar with computers.