The problem is that this is not an AI chatbot, at least not in the sense the term AI is thrown around right now. Chatbots like this have been wasting people's time for a few years now. A modern LLM should not have any problem to detect whether the user has a problem with the connection or their wifi.
I'm still optimistic that support chats are a field that may actually see improvements through (otherise overhyped IMHO) LLMs.
If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
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Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#12The general trend of insulating the human customer away from human customer service is just a horrible thing that keeps spreading. It was bad enough outsourcing customer support to overseas agents who have their hands tied to only read from a script and generally do nothing, and now we're just talking to computers that can generally do nothing. The message is the same: we don't actually care about our customers.
I own a small business and I would rather shut my doors than force my paying customers through AI cattle gates to struggle for help. I can understand that providing customer support on a massive scale is hard, but it is arguably the MOST important part of the customer experience, maybe even more so than the product itself. It seems incomprehensibly short-sighted to abstract it away in the name of short-term profits.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#13It was like that before chat bots. You always got some low-grade script-reading human support before being escalated to people who can fix things. The following actually happened to me in the early 1990s.
I had my own phone line installed in a house where I was renting a room (to be able to use a dialup modem freely). It had crosstalk on it, probably due to a ground fault. But try to explain that to the support person. "Sir, have you tried another phone jack?", that sort of thing. After mounting frustration, I finally found the password: "I can hear other people on my phone line!" That solved it. Click. Real tech person "Oh, so you have crosstalk on your line? Probably a ground fault. We'll send someone right out".
Frankly, an AI chatbot can follow the "script" that the initial support person followed, just as easily.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#14[flagged]
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#15The thing is, he was having trouble with his WiFi. He, like most computer scientists, is dedicated to the True Name of Things, which I can respect, but also, in this day and age, WiFi == Internet. I know it literally doesn't, but the uh, vector embedding, for WiFi and internet? Very similar.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#16I work for a company [0] in this space. The fundamental problem is that a lot of customers will reach out on operationally expensive channels (chat, calls) about questions that are easily answered from a FAQ, knowledge base or on the website. In-chat article lookups or AI chat bots with ability to offer some information are trying to divert otherwise unnecessary requests. I do think AI chatbots are part of the future…
I agree it can be good, but it needs to take into account "exceptional" scenarios.
e.g.
Recently moved and got ATT fiber, got the setup package and set it all up... Nothing. No connection to the fiber.
Go outside, see the literally severed fiber strand outside my home where it ran into the living room.
Took over an hour of support calls to schedule the technician out. Had me step through all the "turn it off and on again steps".
Then they called me 5x the day before to try and "trouble shoot" the issue with a call center agent.
Each time I had to tell them, its physically broken, there will not be a fix over the phone. It seemed as if the fact I was a first time setup made them completely forget that something could actually be wrong. All their automation said it was my fault.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#17The general trend of insulating the human customer away from human customer service is just a horrible thing that keeps spreading. It was bad enough outsourcing customer support to overseas agents who have their hands tied to only read from a script and generally do nothing, and now we're just talking to computers that can generally do nothing. The message is the same: we don't actually care about our customers. I ow…
It's gotten so bad, that I have started to actively look for for products and services with known good customer support. E.g. I switched to an internet provider for SMEs. Costs around 20% more, but has dedicated IPv4/IPv6 IPs and offers a real human help desk.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#18I hate AI chatbots too and I have yet to encounter one that is remotely helpful, let alone an enjoyable experience.
On the other hand I can very well image how such a positive exchange could look like.
I am not convinced that it is not possible to create a chatbot that provides a satisfactory or even satisfying interaction, but I believe the incentives to do so are not there. Most of the time chatbots are just an additional obstacle in a funnel that is designed to repel the vast majority of people that try to get through.
So, the sad state of chatbots says more about the attitude of companies towards their customers than about the abilities of AI, in my opinion.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#19The thing is, he was having trouble with his WiFi. He, like most computer scientists, is dedicated to the True Name of Things, which I can respect, but also, in this day and age, WiFi == Internet. I know it literally doesn't, but the uh, vector embedding, for WiFi and internet? Very similar.
He wasn't having trouble with his WiFi since he was connected directly to the device. Although it might have helped to specify an Ethernet link. Still, chatbots are generally a terrible user experience.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#20The problem is that this is not an AI chatbot, at least not in the sense the term AI is thrown around right now. Chatbots like this have been wasting people's time for a few years now. A modern LLM should not have any problem to detect whether the user has a problem with the connection or their wifi. I'm still optimistic that support chats are a field that may actually see improvements through (otherise overhyped IMH…
I had a decent experience with a service recently that used a ChatGPT powered support agent, it couldn't deal with my situation but I was surprised by how quickly it knew its own limitations and handed me to an actual human who helped me out.
Edit: The chatbot in question was not powered by ChatGPT a few months ago and it was pretty bad, a few canned QAs and really weird loops to get to a human agent. Before that the same service had direct human support. But as someone who has worked in a support capacity myself I will take the nice middle ground with a decent LLM that can quickly dispatch me to a human agent should it not be able to solve the issue.