Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human” • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#121

Post by fao_ » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #99

PaulKeeble wrote: post #16

I think its important to recognise that quite a lot of modern web based companies are running their business on the 0 cents model. That is they take the marginal cost of a customer and push it down to zero and rely on scale to make a profit from it. They can't add anything to their business that would scale with the number of their customers that has any real cost, computing resources even are heavily optimised for l…

> I think its important to recognise that quite a lot of modern web based companies are running their business on the 0 cents model. That is they take the marginal cost of a customer and push it down to zero and rely on scale to make a profit from it. Well, that's their problem. There should absolutely be a "right to speak with a human", like a restaurant must pass health inspections, and other such things. If they c…

> If they can't afford it as a basic cost of doing business, they can always close.

This 100%. It reminds me of the similar issue of zero-hour contracts and living wages. One person I know complained that putting restrictions on zero hour contacts, and upping the amount that he would have to pay workers, would mean he couldn't hire any (for his extremely early-stage startup with no investment(!)).

In a similar vein, the answer is the same -- if you can't afford to pay employees, don't hire them.

And this applies more generally than either of our examples -- if a company cannot afford to do something ethically, then it shouldn't do it at all. A business that cannot survive when forced to comply with the bare minimum of ethical practices deserves to fail. You cannot simultaneously believe in a capitalist market without embracing with open arms, the failure of companies that couldn't stick it.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#122

Post by lyptt » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

I had an issue yesterday where Comcast forced me to go through their chatbot before I could speak to a human. That drove me crazy, because what I wanted to do I couldn't do on their website at all.

There needs to be some kind of escape hatch where you can get through to a real person. Companies that do stuff like this just make me want to stop dealing with them altogether.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#123

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#124

Post by RobertRoberts » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

jddil wrote: post #46

dforrestwilson wrote: post #18

This week we had a disgruntled employee leave a 1-star Google review of our shop. They have never been a customer... I reported it as a Conflict of Interest PER GOOGLE'S OWN STATED POLICY and it was rejected almost immediately. Google could find nothing wrong with the review. We have no recourse to escalate. No way to even interact with a human about it. It's absolutely ridiculous. I have plenty of documentation and…

Got to say the fact that you thought someone leaving a 1 star review on a service you don't own, google, was worth you escalating it to a real person tells me these companies are doing the right thing. And shaming the CEOs when you made the choice to use their product is a bit silly and you come off as entitled, not righteous. How do we or google know if he was disgruntled vs fired, how do we know if he didn't come i…

> ...when you made the choice to use their product...

Where did the poster say/claim this? Your entire argument is based on if they are a user of Google services or not?

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#125

Post by pimterry » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

In the EU & UK at least, for many cases this already exists: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr.

> the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.

In any case where that applies, the organization must include safeguards, including (as a minimum) the right to obtain human intervention, to express their point of view, and to contest the automated decision.

This applies only to legal or significant decisions (more details & examples here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...) which means anything that could substantially affect your financial circumstances, health, reputation, employment opportunities, etc, or anything that affects your legal status or legal rights.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#126

Post by rmbyrro » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #116

rmbyrro wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet 99.99% of people who complain about not having a human to talk don't want to pay a single dollar for that human.

Once one realizes this, one sees the value of paying for goods and services. Being the customer and not the product. The next step is seeking out the best service providers and rewarding them with dollars.

I totally agree and think this way. It's just that we are 0.01% of the market. Or, can we even call a "market" such a small group of people? We might be thousands, perhaps dozens of thousands, or even a hundred thousand. Yet, this isn't enough to sustain the sheer amount of services we'd require in our modern lives.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#127

Post by ChefboyOG » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #99

PaulKeeble wrote: post #16

I think its important to recognise that quite a lot of modern web based companies are running their business on the 0 cents model. That is they take the marginal cost of a customer and push it down to zero and rely on scale to make a profit from it. They can't add anything to their business that would scale with the number of their customers that has any real cost, computing resources even are heavily optimised for l…

> I think its important to recognise that quite a lot of modern web based companies are running their business on the 0 cents model. That is they take the marginal cost of a customer and push it down to zero and rely on scale to make a profit from it. Well, that's their problem. There should absolutely be a "right to speak with a human", like a restaurant must pass health inspections, and other such things. If they c…

A "right to speak with a human" makes sense to me on an industry-by-industry basis, in the same way that construction companies and restaurants have different regulatory agencies and checks.

Applying it to all businesses sounds like a bad idea, however. Financial institutions? Certainly. Healthcare companies? Makes all kinds of sense. But I don't see an ethical imperative for, say, Giphy (pre-acquisition) to provide that kind of support.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#128

Post by tartoran » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

radarsat1 wrote: post #53

I recently had the experience of trying to do a banking operation that required an in-person visit. For some reason this bank required me to do this operation at the branch that I originally opened the account, which is not where I live anymore, and it's very inconvenient for me to go there. So, while I was in another city of that country, I decided to try and handle that problem. I went to a branch and asked them to…

Yes, but at least you have the hope that talking to the right human would fix the issue eventually. Talking to automated systems repeatedly and each time hoping for a different outcome is akin to Don Quijote battling the windmills. Even in a Kafkian bureaucratic nightmare there’s a chance a human would eventually help you out but with automated systems there’s no reasoning because they’re poorly automated, edgecases are traps you can never get out of.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#129

Post by notriddle » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

> Part of me thinks (perhaps naively) if I had the ability to speak with a real person over the phone, we could sort this out instead of constant emails or creating tickets that go into a black hole.

Honestly, yes, I do think you’re being naive.

Ask me about the time I tried to switch from a rented modem to one we own on COX phone support. They bounced me around through separate departments which gave contradicting information about how their own stuff worked, and when I finally gave up and just dumped them for a different ISP, tried to talk us into keeping them by offering a limited time offer for a cheaper price at half the speed (as if).

Or about trying to get payment stuff worked out with my bank. The most pleasant experience I’ve ever had with them on the phone is debit card activation and the occasional fraud prevention notice. Neither of which involve humans.

In short, if they need forced to offer phone support, it will suck. It’ll just be a poor sap sending the email for you anyway.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#130

Post by scottLobster » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

rmbyrro wrote: post #102

PaulKeeble wrote: post #16

I think its important to recognise that quite a lot of modern web based companies are running their business on the 0 cents model. That is they take the marginal cost of a customer and push it down to zero and rely on scale to make a profit from it. They can't add anything to their business that would scale with the number of their customers that has any real cost, computing resources even are heavily optimised for l…

I bet 99.99% of people who complain about not having a human to talk don't want to pay a single dollar for that human.

Louis Rossmann talks about this in the context of his old electronics supply company. One of the reasons he started that company was that the suppliers he had previously worked with had horrible customer service, and a lot of people he knew professionally complained about it. Thought he found a niche in the market.

So long story short he created a supply company with dedicated customer support, but his prices were correspondingly higher (those extra salaries have to come from somewhere). Most people just went with the cheapest option every time, one of the reasons that business failed.