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

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

#251

Post by ss108 »

tomrod wrote: post #136
inetknght wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aflac has recently (past year) 100% stopped their phone support. Calling their phone support tells you to log in to their website. I hope you don't have trouble with their website! I was able to get my issue sort-of resolved by making a complaint to a regulator -- I now have a direct line to someone capable of taking my phone call. But that's not an option for every company.

The IRS dumps you after navigating their call tree if you need less popular options that aren't clear. Me: I want to comply with tax laws but have a question. IRS: Oh, you submitted paperwork and want to follow up on a letter we responded with? Hey, good luck. Maybe get an opinion from a tax attorney or CPA on what we mean in our comms.

Oh btw, they send their 2FA via regular mail.

WTF IS UP WITH THAT

How hostile

Practically designed to convert people libertarian

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

#252

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

fao_ wrote: post #121
coldtea wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

But you can comply with ethical business practices without hiring employees to deal with hundreds of thousands of callers. Automated moderation is a thing, and actually responding to support tickets instead of ignoring them is also a thing.

I think you underestimate how many services you rely on that wouldn't be able to survive with a legal requirement that they were required to take calls from any human that wanted to contact them. Presumably those services are useful to you and you wouldn't want them to be closed down, yes? And similarly, you wouldn't want to be paying the $50-100/month for each service that would likely be required if every single one had to support a fully-staffed call center to deal with not only customers but potentially affected non-customers (as in the Giphy example in the parallel comment thread).

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

#253

Post by ss108 »

selectronics wrote: post #133
ss108 wrote: post #4

I agree. You mentioned email, but to me the main issue is when one calls a support number. I absolutely despise calling a customer support number and having to listen to the "automated" response that gives one menu options that one navigates via numbers on the telephone (it's only automated for them, not the for the end-user, who has to manually chug through this process, with menu items that don't even necessarily c…

Very frustrating dealing with these systems, as it's known ahead of time that the experience is going to be a fruitless slog. Perhaps this increased friction is by design, to reduce the incoming support call volume? Fortunately, for some of these systems, ignoring the menu and stating "Operator" over and over does lead to a human, when there appears to be no path through the menus to otherwise reach one. I've heard t…

Yeah, I find usually scrambling the keypad or repeatedly pressing 9 or # can yield a person.

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

#254

Post by ironmagma »

pdonis wrote: post #193
ironmagma wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point here is that it’s a bad business model. I don’t mean “bad as in won’t make you money or keep the business running,” I mean “bad for society.” Hence the desire to regulate.

The way to get rid of bad business models is not for the government to regulate them. It's for customers to refuse to do business with them.

The problem is, not every business you need to contact is something you are doing business with. For example, a business that has unwittingly published your contact information. Or, alternatively, Equifax, a data broker that makes plenty of money and controls your destiny to some extent yet which you do not pay directly.

Besides, there is no way to know in advance that you will have a problem that requires a phone call.

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

#255

Post by elliekelly »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #220
kqr wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is empirically a false dichotomy. You can have flexibility and safety. It just takes the right culture. You have to do away with hierarchy, blame, etc. In fact, I believe flexibility can ultimately lead to even greater safety than bureaucracy, which is, as Graeber put it, active stupidity. And while aiming for stupidity might rule out some classes of errors, it definitely introduces even more of them.

I think I disagree. In security (not just financial), security and user convenience are almost always at war with each other. And "culture" doesn't seem to fix it.

There’s a really interesting book called “Black Box Thinking” about the culture of safety & reducing errors. The author uses the airline industry (highly focused on the end-result of safe operations and expressly avoids placing blame) to illustrate how culture can indeed have a huge impact on these things. The “fatal” errors often aren’t just one big point of failure but many small issues in combination. A culture where employees aren’t afraid to speak up about the small issues is really valuable because often many of the big problems could have been solved by preventing just one or more of the smaller underlying problems.

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

#256

Post by ironmagma »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #80
ironmagma wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point here is that it’s a bad business model. I don’t mean “bad as in won’t make you money or keep the business running,” I mean “bad for society.” Hence the desire to regulate.

While true, this is how the system is set up for at the moment, because if one company doesn't cut costs, someone else (with a lot of investor money) will come in and undercut the market. Because when it comes down to it, people don't care about speaking to a human when they can get a product or service for less than the competition. Both corporations and consumers min/max their expenses, at the cost of service or hu…

Haven’t you tried calling the DMV before? It’s a nightmare. Governments are not significantly better at this than private industry. Private industry can be great at it, they just have no incentive to be currently.

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

#257

Post by sokoloff »

rkangel wrote: post #198
dmd wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define "web based company"? If I slap together a 50 line program in a few minutes and offer it on my personal domain for anyone to use, do I have to publish my phone number for anyone to call if they have a problem with it someday?

I would probably use the word "service" and I specifically don't mean "web based service". If someone is providing a service (for money?) then you should have the right to speak to a human about issues with your service. That seems reasonable to me.

If that is important to you, what prevents you from only doing business with companies who will operate on terms you find agreeable? Is it necessary to force others to avoid low-touch, low-cost companies/services that they appear to be perfectly happy with?

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

#258

Post by agentdrtran »

Maxburn wrote: post #158

You don't have the right to tell others how to run their business. You do have the right to take your business elsewhere. In a free market people vote with their wallet and there's plenty out there that accept the zero support model with a lower price, whether they understand what they are getting or not. That's assuming they even bother to ask about support options up front.

what happens when the free market decides to do something in nobody's best interest except themselves?

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

#259

Post by spyc »

My personal worst hit list in this space:

- Companies that will not even listen to your (serious) bug reports if you don't have an account with them. Looking at you suddenlink.net. Failed big time, gave up.

- Voice robots that do not understand users, despite being native speakers

- Voice robots that do not understand non-native speakers

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

#260

Post by Msw242 »

chii wrote: post #98
Msw242 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a higher price level! It's important to write out and acknowledge that people cost money.

exactly! I think the right should be there - but the cost must also be associated with it. For example, there should be a plan for which you pay an upfront cost and get a human.

HN logic:

A) my skillset deserves $300k/y in comp B) I'm not paying another $10/m for my bank just because they'll have to have a human spend a few hours a year supporting me

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