Just had this convo with a coworker. We all share phone duties, & he absolutely hates this, bc it requires learning details that are not His Area Of Expertise (where he can Dominate everyone else, bc Expert).
He regards answering the phones as bullshit busy work that he shouldn't have to be bothered with. He totally misses that the objective is to push staffers to learn about the whole org. (Whether this is an effective strategy to that end is an entirely different discussion 😒 ) >
So of course when the question of scheduling when our team is responsible for covering the next period of heavy phone traffic, his suggestion! "Let's use chatbots! We can train an LLM!"
Completely missing that the time, effort, & expense (not to mention debugging & trouble-shooting) to actually DO that will be some whole number multiple multiple of just having staff do the damn work—all because Kevin can't be arsed to learn the material.
Case in point: just spent a half an hour wrestling with Target pharmacy's phone bot trying to get it to let me talk to a human because Somebody did Something Creative with my prescription.
HOW the fuck are these things EVER helpful??
And people want to do MORE of this nonsense. Because Profit! 🤬🤬🤬🤬
In fairness, when the transaction is simple & straightforward, automation works a treat:
Just called the pharmacy, 1st thing the bot said was: "Your prescription is ready for pick-up." Thanks! That's what I needed to know, & I'm happy not having to wait on hold & then soak up pharmacist time answering this question!
On day a week, I am the person that gets talked to. Yes, we COULD do this with AI. But I've lost count of the number of times callers have expressed gratitude for being able to talk to a Real Live Flesh & Blood Humanâ„¢
Especially when they're stressed. Or confused. Or their question has some nuance to it....
Ben Higbie
Cavyherd