Ask HN: Will low quality AI customer support be the new normal?

I believe customer support should actually be done by humans, as customers feel undervalued when they talk to scrappy voice agents, atleast make an effort to use good ones, so it tries to speak like humans

The real fun one is calling the utility company to report a downed line from a pole snapped in half and the bot agent doesn’t transfer you to a human even when you say “emergency”, “public hazard”, “utility pole obstructing a roadway”, “potential property damage your corporation will be liable for”, “immenient danger to life and limb” or any and all applicable keyword variations that might warrant humanly answering (and, to add insult to injury, cannot take a report of the event either but simply ends 10 of your calls in a row with a texted link to livechat with its textbot sibling). Like +−×÷ says nearby, it’s austerity.

Almost every “call tree” I’ve needed to navigate has seemed designed to prevent customer escalation to a human at all costs, despite not meeting my needs as a caller. In this way they are user hostile, and I expect the new technology to be used similarly to much greater effect.

That being said, if the technology can remove the need for human escalation, I’ll certainly change my view.

Until it either gets good, or consumers revolt against it.