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If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
121–130 of 200 posts
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your opinion stems from never having dealt with normal people interfacing with a technical product . They're not asking the same questions you or I might, they're asking documented questions and they're doing it in obscene volume, with such little ability to help themselves. ISPs probably take the cup for worst ratio of technical issues to technical idiots. It's not just a modem, there's a line, an internal n…
My dad's ISP did exactly what you say is impossible. It was a small ISP in Salt Lake City (xmission, if anyone cares). They had actual humans answering the phone, and no bankruptcies.
I worked for a small ISP in the mid 90's and we did the same. The only reason this worked is because back then, barely anyone was online. And many of the people who were online were technically sophisticated early adopters that needed less support. Today's world is very different.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your opinion stems from never having dealt with normal people interfacing with a technical product . They're not asking the same questions you or I might, they're asking documented questions and they're doing it in obscene volume, with such little ability to help themselves. ISPs probably take the cup for worst ratio of technical issues to technical idiots. It's not just a modem, there's a line, an internal n…
>Your desire to handle that all in-house by organic, corn-fed, English-as-their-first-language meat-bags is lovely but you'd be bankrupt in a week. This sentiment is, in essence, the problem. It's perfectly logical for this trend of distancing customers from their , as you put it, "all in-house by organic, corn-fed, English-as-their-first-language-meat-bags" when you start with the core concept that the _only_ purpos…
> when you start with the core concept that the _only_ purpose of a company is to earn capital.
...Yes? That's literally what a corporation is for. That some might have good customer service is simply a marketing method to get people to continue using that company to, in the end, earn capital. If you want to run a service whose primary motive is not earning capital, create a non profit.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's rather simple. If you don't pay enough money for a product that would sustain good customer service, you won't get it. Especially if you pay nothing and the product business model is ad-based. If you pay enough money, you usually can get good customer service, but you might pay a lot.
AT&T gigabit internet tends to be $1,200 a year and has incredible margins on profitability.
Did prices increase dramatically? I had ATT Gigabit when I lived in Texas about 7 years ago and it was somewhere around $100.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your opinion stems from never having dealt with normal people interfacing with a technical product . They're not asking the same questions you or I might, they're asking documented questions and they're doing it in obscene volume, with such little ability to help themselves. ISPs probably take the cup for worst ratio of technical issues to technical idiots. It's not just a modem, there's a line, an internal n…
>Your desire to handle that all in-house by organic, corn-fed, English-as-their-first-language meat-bags is lovely but you'd be bankrupt in a week. This sentiment is, in essence, the problem. It's perfectly logical for this trend of distancing customers from their , as you put it, "all in-house by organic, corn-fed, English-as-their-first-language-meat-bags" when you start with the core concept that the _only_ purpos…
Look at the profit margin for some given company. And you need to look at the profit, not the revenue they get from you.
Many of the companies you are asking to provide service are making a buck or two a month from you, even if you are nominally paying hundreds of dollars. So if you call up a real human, you can be draining away months, years, even the entire profit margin you will ever be worth, pretty quickly. Especially if you want to be talking to someone making more than the US minimum wage.
You don't need the principle that "the only purpose of a company is to earn capital". All you need to explain the current situation is "a company can not survive if expenses exceed income". You can't have customers costing you more than they pay you and make it up in volume. So consumers are basically just boned; they will not and even can not pay enough to get good support for most of the things they buy. Not in theory, not in fact.
I know places that provide very good support. But they are places where the profit margin on a customer is well sufficient to pay for a support person's amortized time, and losing the customer still hurts the bottom line, even after a support call or three, because even three extended support calls that resulted in consults straight to engineering still weren't anywhere near enough to cancel the profit margin.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#126I 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 a…
You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how many people will go outside their home, see whatever random cable/wire within eyesight that looks "weird" and become convinced to the core of their being that that cable is the reason netflix is blurry.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Consider how much you pay monthly for the service. Then consider how much time would a customer support agent have to spend to help you out and how much money it would cost. To time spent, add in training time, training costs and to always have 100% capacity, the downtime costs as well. Humans cost a lot. And if you want creative, passionate humans who would be willing to go off script, you'd have to pay them…
The obvious solution though is to fix the product/service so people don't have to talk to customer support (pit of success, yada yada). This is an iterative process and requires people who form a cross-functional team willing to speak up. I don't see how it is possible in an assembly line kind of environment but for small teams, I am sure it is doable?
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Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Consider how much you pay monthly for the service. Then consider how much time would a customer support agent have to spend to help you out and how much money it would cost. To time spent, add in training time, training costs and to always have 100% capacity, the downtime costs as well. Humans cost a lot. And if you want creative, passionate humans who would be willing to go off script, you'd have to pay them…
The obvious solution though is to fix the product/service so people don't have to talk to customer support (pit of success, yada yada). This is an iterative process and requires people who form a cross-functional team willing to speak up. I don't see how it is possible in an assembly line kind of environment but for small teams, I am sure it is doable?
> The obvious solution though is to fix the product/service so people don't have to talk to customer support
This is a naive model of why customers call for support that I used to also hold before I had to deal with customers.
I've helped my dad with customer service for a technical product he sells online and there really is nothing you can put in a one-page manual and there's no perfect UI that stops people from calling to waste your time if you make yourself too available.
Though working in Target over a summer was all it took to dispel the myth. Almost every question involved me going (in my head) "Not sure why you need me to do this, but okay, let's read the back of the packaging together so I can answer your question having also never encountered this product in my life."
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's rather simple. If you don't pay enough money for a product that would sustain good customer service, you won't get it. Especially if you pay nothing and the product business model is ad-based. If you pay enough money, you usually can get good customer service, but you might pay a lot.
In my experience, paying a high price is no guarantee you'll get particularly good customer service. Obviously, it is often the case that you can pay more and get better service. But at the same time, the $300 seats at the theatre and the $40 seats get exactly the same treatment from the ushers. The premium airlines lose bags just as often as the economy airlines - maybe moreso, with their large highly automated hub…
It obviously depends on the category of the "thing" we're talking about - and you can only compare it ceteris paribus with other things.
>But at the same time, the $300 seats at the theatre and the $40 seats get exactly the same treatment from the ushers. The premium airlines lose bags just as often as the economy airlines - maybe moreso, with their large highly automated hub airports.
But the premium seats at the airplane have better treatment than economy ones.
Re: If AI chatbots are the future, I hate it
#130Chatbots are the past. The future is an llm/ai that knows you, your history & account after you identify and is able to ask the right questions and tap into the full range of tools (documentation, human operators, etc.) at its disposal to resolve your issue. It will remember past conversations. It will understand you and speak your native language. It wont get angry or frustrated with you and it will try to save the company it works for money by doing the right thing, which is generally resolving your issue.
The current 'state of the art' is spending 40 minutes on hold after navigating some silly voice menu to get to talk to a person that barely has any training who serves as first line support and probably can't resolve your issue. They are likely to hang up on you and you'll face ground hog day until you accidentally say the right words that unlock access to someone with a clue. That's the past few decades. It's not that great either.