The Seven Voyages Of SteveFeb 15, 2023
I don’t understand the attraction of being able to talk to computers using breezy casual conversational language; I’ve been telling these little digital bastards what to do for decades using extremely precise formalised language and they still get it wrong
Show threadAndrew ZonenbergFeb 18, 2023

@sinbad I really hope that this whole LLM / chatbot craze goes the way of NFTs soon.

I'm already having problems with websites where you can't call support directly, you have to interact with a chatbot in order to convince it that your problem is actually worthy of human assistance. If these become more prevalent it's only going to get worse.

Show threadLisPiFeb 18, 2023
@azonenberg It used to be, at least on older chatbot generations, that you could simply tell the bot you want to talk to a human.
Show threadAndrew ZonenbergFeb 18, 2023

@lispi314 yes but the whole point of them is to avoid paying salaries to human support staff because they cost money.

This is why phone robots etc are so hard to get around. They want you to solve your issue entirely via the robot without ever interacting with an (expensive) human.

Show threadLisPi
@azonenberg I did suspect as much, but fairly often the bot is useless for anything not already documented somewhere else.
Feb 18, 2023 at 3:48pmWeb
Show threadAndrew ZonenbergFeb 18, 2023

@lispi314 Yes, but apparently there's enough users who don't read the FAQs - or management thinks there are - that it's cost-effective to add all of these hoops before the actual support staff.

It's already painful enough going through level 1 support; almost any time I call a vendor it's because I tried basic troubleshooting steps and I need something that level 2 or service can provide.

Which is why I love dealing with industrial/B2B folks instead of consumer oriented companies because they tend to offer actual functional support.

Show threadLisPiFeb 18, 2023

@azonenberg Yeah, I feel that pain.

Tier 1 tends to always just be a repeat of the document troubleshooting steps, it's a waste of time for everyone involved.

Because the assumption is that the average user is an illiterate idiot.

Show threadAndrew ZonenbergFeb 18, 2023

@lispi314 I would love if these vendors would provide a "professional user" account tier - even if it cost a bit more - that gave you direct phone access to level 2 support.

Never gonna happen but would be awesome. Some years ago it took months of repeated calls and site visits to convince Comcast that the intermittent outages I was having were the result of a cable plant issue upstream and not something on premises.

FINALLY someone way too smart to be working in tier 1 support decided to pull logs from my neighbors' modems and noticed any time I had an outage, they did too. Sent a tech out to climb the pole and found a splice that was just friction-fit, no crimp, and would wiggle loose whenever the wind hit it right.

Show threadEsme CiredutempsFeb 20, 2023
@azonenberg @lispi314 maybe there are a lot of people who don't read the FAQs ?
And you're not statistically representative of a user ?