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Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

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Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#231

Post by MitziMoto »

dawnerd wrote: post #224
janderson215 wrote: post #99

I see a lot of negativity in regards to using AI as a customer service agent. I have only spoken with 1 and that was calling Starlink customer support. It was easily better than 95% of customer support experiences I’ve had. My guess is the bad experiences have to do with bad execution. I’m sure some companies think they can just plug in AI and their job is done. Obviously that is wrong, but done right, the experience…

If it’s something easy enough for ai to handle then why isn’t it just an option on a site?

I think you are wildly underestimating how much of a hard on people have for calling businesses, even when there are better and faster options clearly available, like clicking a button online.

Staffing our phone lines is the absolute bane of my small (non tech) business.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#232

Post by MitziMoto »

janderson215 wrote: post #216
reeddavid wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink's AI customer service agent confidently gave me incorrect information about shipping time estimates. It would have been better to have no answer at all than to have a broken promise.

I’m not affiliated with Starlink nor trying to defend them, but I would argue the shipping estimate comes from a black box and is totally unrelated to the AI agent. My shipping estimate in the app said expected to ship between June 22 and July 2, but it’s actually arriving tomorrow. I’m happy with it in my case, it I could understand if coming outside of the window (either early or late) is frustrating.

Exactly. Not Starlink, but Tesla, their stupid non AI allocation tracker said my model X would be ready in a month for about 13 straight months (Early Model X plaid allocation)

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#233

Post by protocolture »

janderson215 wrote: post #99

I see a lot of negativity in regards to using AI as a customer service agent. I have only spoken with 1 and that was calling Starlink customer support. It was easily better than 95% of customer support experiences I’ve had. My guess is the bad experiences have to do with bad execution. I’m sure some companies think they can just plug in AI and their job is done. Obviously that is wrong, but done right, the experience…

Best AI I have used for support was Githubs, and even then Github has some nuance between its different enterprise offerings that it didnt quite grasp.

I find that 99%+ of support LLMs are just an extra hurdle that cant provide me with what I want.

I used Kogans chat LLM the other day, I gave it the details of my enquiry and it escalated me to a human. The human reviewed the case and then raised a ticket for a technical contact. I am not particularly angry at the LLM or the first human, but one of them is definitely redundant and wasting my time.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#234

Post by nailer »

phillipcarter wrote: post #220
nailer wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "he supports the PayPal/Yammer/Zenifits guy and protecting the US border" was the massive expose you thought it was. Half of the country does that, it's not remarkable at all.

I did not write an expose. I replied to a VC who went out of his way to congratulate the CEO, who is a known abuser and man with openly awful politics that contradict the values of those who he purports to lead. Not unlike my own CEO, for what it's worth, except for the abuser part.

> openly awful politics that contradict the values of those who he purports to lead

That’s the point, though. You have a subjective view of his politics which are fairly mainstream and not damning at all.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#235

Post by madrox »

janderson215 wrote: post #99

I see a lot of negativity in regards to using AI as a customer service agent. I have only spoken with 1 and that was calling Starlink customer support. It was easily better than 95% of customer support experiences I’ve had. My guess is the bad experiences have to do with bad execution. I’m sure some companies think they can just plug in AI and their job is done. Obviously that is wrong, but done right, the experience…

I was responsible for overseeing a Sierra AI implementation to replace our tier 1 support bot, which was not AI but a basic heuristic bot.

Containment from the bot alone shot up past 50%. Customer satisfaction with support went through the roof. And this was basic knowledge support with account awareness. We had not wired up any tools yet.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#236

Post by YZF »

janderson215 wrote: post #99

I see a lot of negativity in regards to using AI as a customer service agent. I have only spoken with 1 and that was calling Starlink customer support. It was easily better than 95% of customer support experiences I’ve had. My guess is the bad experiences have to do with bad execution. I’m sure some companies think they can just plug in AI and their job is done. Obviously that is wrong, but done right, the experience…

The problem isn't that AI can't give good service. The problem is it's going to be intentionally limited in the service it gives and its ability to make decisions.

Every automated service I ever interacted with was built in a way that it would not help you with anything that incurs a cost to the company that built it.

I think frontier models are really good at solving technical problems. So if your support call is "how do I do this with the product" and there is a way to do that then I agree it can be a great experience. At the point where you need to involve the engineering team and maybe get bugs fixed I imagine the AI will push back because the entire reason the AI is there is to solve cost and if it ends up creating bugs or bugging the engineering team it'll start consuming money instead of saving it. It probably could be engineered to do this but the incentives are pretty strong not do that.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#237

Post by cco »

pbiggar wrote: post #117

I'm sad to see Intercom/Fin's CEO, Eoghan McCabe, did not face repercussions after credible allegations about sexually harassing his employees came out in The Information in 2019 [1]. Some quotes: > When the woman said she, too, wanted to go home, Mr. McCabe told her that he wanted her to remain, the people said. After the other two employees had left, Mr. McCabe made a lewd remark to the saleswoman and said that he…

Have only heard bad stories over the years. Was surprised and disheartened to see him return in a leadership position.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#238

Post by kaliqt »

YZF wrote: post #236
janderson215 wrote: post #99

I see a lot of negativity in regards to using AI as a customer service agent. I have only spoken with 1 and that was calling Starlink customer support. It was easily better than 95% of customer support experiences I’ve had. My guess is the bad experiences have to do with bad execution. I’m sure some companies think they can just plug in AI and their job is done. Obviously that is wrong, but done right, the experience…

The problem isn't that AI can't give good service. The problem is it's going to be intentionally limited in the service it gives and its ability to make decisions. Every automated service I ever interacted with was built in a way that it would not help you with anything that incurs a cost to the company that built it. I think frontier models are really good at solving technical problems. So if your support call is "h…

That is again an issue with company culture because the issues should be addressed anyway, AI or human.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#239

Post by apparent »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #162
janderson215 wrote: post #99

I see a lot of negativity in regards to using AI as a customer service agent. I have only spoken with 1 and that was calling Starlink customer support. It was easily better than 95% of customer support experiences I’ve had. My guess is the bad experiences have to do with bad execution. I’m sure some companies think they can just plug in AI and their job is done. Obviously that is wrong, but done right, the experience…

I’ve also really enjoyed Amazons support agent. Sometimes it can be really helpful.

Yikes, I find it hopeless, just takes me in circles.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#240

Post by ben_w »

ryukoposting wrote: post #222
jsbg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a scene in The Office. The salesmen phone the cheaper competitor's customer service while on a sales call to let them see how long they would wait on hold if they needed support. That said, I had an experience recently where the chatbot replaced the phone tree that led to a human and it was very helpful.

Chatbots seem to work fine as long as your request is on the happy path. Call your bank to get a cashier's check? Great. Call your bank because the cashier's check never arrived in the mail, and you need to recover the money, but you closed the account the check originally came from? Forget it.

TBH, this is also my experience with humans.

Spent about 18-24 months with E.ON trying to convince them that the street they'd sent the bills to didn't exist. Eventually had to contact the Ombudsman.

And E.ON don't even have the worst reputation for customer service in their domain.

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