A majority (64%) of 5,728 people surveyed by Gartner in December 2023 said they would prefer companies not to use AI in their customer service. Additionally, 53%...
If it worked for most shit and escalated to a human when it actually needed to, reliably, I’d be fine with it.
I don’t believe there’s a realistic chance that there’s a lot of overlap between the people willing to invest to actually do it properly and the people paying for AI instead of people though.
The problem is the same as with the telephone answering trees.
If they’re used to help you get where you’re going, then they’re great. But that’s not the best financially motivated decision. Solving your problem costs the companies money. Pissing you off and convincing you that your problem shouldn’t be fixed saves money on support.
So making you go round in circles is the machine doing EXACTLY what they want it to do.
I get one of those meal kit delivery services. Every few weeks I’ll go to their AI customer support and ask for cancellation and it’ll give me discounts on upcoming orders. I keep the service at about 40% off at all times. Also when there’s a problem with the order the chat bot just tosses me a discount. Cases like this are perfect for AI customer service.
Edit
Wow this blew up in a weird way. Just to be clear on a few points:
With the discount I pay $87 Canadian which is $76 untaxed or about $55usd. I also pay for this service using gift cards from Costco that are 20% off ($100 for $80) bringing that $55 weekly cost down to about $44. For 6 different dinners for me and my wife delivered to my front door every Monday. With crazy grocery prices where I live I cannot come close to beating that without giving up something. I won’t eat the same thing every night (Sunday meal prep bros, don’t at me), I don’t want to expend the mental energy gathering recipes and ingredients but I do enjoy cooking a lot. It’s something at the end of the day I can do with my hands free of screens. At regular price this was worth it to me, at 40% off it’s actually saving me money. If they’re still making money shipping this big box off food to me on a weekly basis, then good for them, we’re both coming out on top.
Except they’re selling you the kit at waaaay over cost in the first place, so they’re still making money off of you. I promise you they are aware of the “glitch”, and are not ignoring it out of the kindness of their hearts.
(not criticising you for using the service, if it works for you go for it and get those discounts, but don’t let them manipulate you in to thinking you’ve got one over on them, they 100% account for this kind of thing and are still making money)
Yea but it works out to $87 (Canadian) for 6 different nights of meals for 2 people. Delivered to my door. I suspect their angle is using this to just keep you from churning at a loss in hopes of just keeping you around in case you go back to paying regular price. The amount of meat, vegetables and dairy in the box along with cost of shipping and paying people to assemble this order, the cost has to be damn near $87 if not a little over.
Like I said, I don’t criticise anyone for using the service, and the more affordable it is, the better, but trust that they are definitely not working at a loss, in the same way supermarkets, that would probably still charge less for the same items, do - by making you believe they’re selling to you at just about what it costs them to get by, when they are selling it to you for significantly more.
They certainly do, but they won’t give up that extra margin if they don’t have to. If customers hate dealing with the AI service, it may be cheaper to compensate them with more discounts than put humans back on the phone.
If it worked for most shit and escalated to a human when it actually needed to, reliably, I’d be fine with it.
I don’t believe there’s a realistic chance that there’s a lot of overlap between the people willing to invest to actually do it properly and the people paying for AI instead of people though.
The problem is the same as with the telephone answering trees.
If they’re used to help you get where you’re going, then they’re great. But that’s not the best financially motivated decision. Solving your problem costs the companies money. Pissing you off and convincing you that your problem shouldn’t be fixed saves money on support.
So making you go round in circles is the machine doing EXACTLY what they want it to do.
That’s an additional problem.
But the bigger problem is that it’s not actually possible to do a good job without genuine meaningful investment in building out the tooling properly.
That’s just it…… they are building it out properly, their goal is just not what you think it is.
I get one of those meal kit delivery services. Every few weeks I’ll go to their AI customer support and ask for cancellation and it’ll give me discounts on upcoming orders. I keep the service at about 40% off at all times. Also when there’s a problem with the order the chat bot just tosses me a discount. Cases like this are perfect for AI customer service.
Edit
Wow this blew up in a weird way. Just to be clear on a few points:
With the discount I pay $87 Canadian which is $76 untaxed or about $55usd. I also pay for this service using gift cards from Costco that are 20% off ($100 for $80) bringing that $55 weekly cost down to about $44. For 6 different dinners for me and my wife delivered to my front door every Monday. With crazy grocery prices where I live I cannot come close to beating that without giving up something. I won’t eat the same thing every night (Sunday meal prep bros, don’t at me), I don’t want to expend the mental energy gathering recipes and ingredients but I do enjoy cooking a lot. It’s something at the end of the day I can do with my hands free of screens. At regular price this was worth it to me, at 40% off it’s actually saving me money. If they’re still making money shipping this big box off food to me on a weekly basis, then good for them, we’re both coming out on top.
Except they’re selling you the kit at waaaay over cost in the first place, so they’re still making money off of you. I promise you they are aware of the “glitch”, and are not ignoring it out of the kindness of their hearts.
(not criticising you for using the service, if it works for you go for it and get those discounts, but don’t let them manipulate you in to thinking you’ve got one over on them, they 100% account for this kind of thing and are still making money)
Yea but it works out to $87 (Canadian) for 6 different nights of meals for 2 people. Delivered to my door. I suspect their angle is using this to just keep you from churning at a loss in hopes of just keeping you around in case you go back to paying regular price. The amount of meat, vegetables and dairy in the box along with cost of shipping and paying people to assemble this order, the cost has to be damn near $87 if not a little over.
Like I said, I don’t criticise anyone for using the service, and the more affordable it is, the better, but trust that they are definitely not working at a loss, in the same way supermarkets, that would probably still charge less for the same items, do - by making you believe they’re selling to you at just about what it costs them to get by, when they are selling it to you for significantly more.
And it’s quite possible that it’s cheaper for them to give those discounts since they’re not employing as many humans. Humans are expensive.
It’s more likely that the food is so cheap that the company still makes money at 40% off. Like how mattresses are always discounted 30% to 70% .
They certainly do, but they won’t give up that extra margin if they don’t have to. If customers hate dealing with the AI service, it may be cheaper to compensate them with more discounts than put humans back on the phone.
Thanks for the massive bill mom and dad.
They got their serotonin and I got exploitation every waking moment of my life.
Smart.
Those of you getting Netflix, Peacock, NFL or other TV subs, note that the cancel button will likely give you long-term discounts too.
USE THEM
If you think that’s how it will be implemented, I have some beans I’d like to sell you.
I’m really not sure how you read my post and got that impression.