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.
I used to design and maintain chatbots for a living, for a company that among other things sold bespoke chatbots to corporate clients, and I can tell you that the companies KNOW that customers don’t want chatbots for customer service. They don’t care. THEY want chatbots for customer service because chatbots are orders of magnitude cheaper than hiring customer service representatives.
A chatbot is gonna cost what it costs them to employ 1-2 customer service reps, but it can handle basically infinite traffic for that price. The GOOD ones handle the simple questions (your "how do I pay my bill"s and your "what are your hours"s) and then forward the difficult ones (“why is my bill fucked up?”) to a human agent. But I absolutely worked with some clients (who I will not name because I do not want to get sued) that explicitly wanted to avoid letting customers get access to a human agent by whatever means possible.
Also a side note but basically no one lets people cancel accounts via chatbot. They inevitably want THOSE requests to go to a human rep so they can try to talk them out of it.
When I contact customer service I almost never want information, I want them to do something. As long as the bots can’t actually make anything happening, they are just a waste of my time. And that’s why I don’t like them
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You know, if they just marketed the chatbots as a natural language way to engage with written product documentation (“what does error d80 mean and how do I fix it?”) I think that’s attractive to customers. It’s when they are presented as a replacement for a human and a barrier to getting real answers that they are a real pain.
In my country they are thinking about putting chat bot on the emergency line (same as 911 call for reference).
So no…when I call I want help, not a chat bot with limited options, no empathy and that will probably desconect my call if I choose the wrong option.
Wtf, which country are you in?
Portugal
https://24.sapo.pt/atualidade/artigos/tecnologia-do-chatgpt-vai-gerir-atendimento-de-chamadas-do-112-em-2025 It is in portuguese, but I think google can translate the webpage
Doesn’t Portugal have really high unemployment? How could this possibly be warranted?
Probably some “friend” of the main party (we call it boys do PS) will get an huge sum to do it…and in the end it will not work properly.
Our goverment does not care. We have an huge problem with nepotism and corruption. In my opinion this is not to improve thr citizen life, is to give money to some boys cooperation.
Also, the unemployment rate covers people without studies or with specific studies not suited for 911 operator. I dont know how it is in other countries, but here the first responder is a police officer and only after him it goes to a registered nurse or health profissional. We are lacking profissionais on both fields. But in the end I would rather have someone without studies but trained to be an 911 operator than a chatbot.
When this news came people started talking about the women who called 911 ordering a pizza. The operator managed to understand the caller was in danger and the pizza call was a code for help. A chatbot can do this??? I dont think so.
I would think that an unemployed person with decent communication skills could be trained to be an operator who would be much better than a chatbot. Point taken about corruption though, that makes sense sadly.
