NemeskiMost consumers hate the idea of AI-generated customer service
conciselyverboseIf it worked for most shit and escalated to a human when it actually needed to, reliably, I’d be fine with it.
I don’t believe there’s a realistic chance that there’s a lot of overlap between the people willing to invest to actually do it properly and the people paying for AI instead of people though.
MeatsOfRageI get one of those meal kit delivery services. Every few weeks I’ll go to their AI customer support and ask for cancellation and it’ll give me discounts on upcoming orders. I keep the service at about 40% off at all times. Also when there’s a problem with the order the chat bot just tosses me a discount. Cases like this are perfect for AI customer service.
And it’s quite possible that it’s cheaper for them to give those discounts since they’re not employing as many humans. Humans are expensive.
It’s more likely that the food is so cheap that the company still makes money at 40% off. Like how mattresses are always discounted 30% to 70% .
They certainly do, but they won’t give up that extra margin if they don’t have to. If customers hate dealing with the AI service, it may be cheaper to compensate them with more discounts than put humans back on the phone.
Thanks for the massive bill mom and dad. They got their serotonin and I got exploitation every waking moment of my life.
DessertStormsExcept they’re selling you the kit at waaaay over cost in the first place, so they’re still making money off of you. I promise you they are aware of the “glitch”, and are not ignoring it out of the kindness of their hearts.
(not criticising you for using the service, if it works for you go for it and get those discounts, but don’t let them manipulate you in to thinking you’ve got one over on them, they 100% account for this kind of thing and are still making money)
snooggumsIf X number of people pay full price and only Y number people go through the hoops of getting a discount the company comes out ahead!
TeddEIt’s worse then that. They’re actively profiting from that discount rate, meaning they’re ludicrously profiting from everyone who doesn’t spend half their life getting discount codes (the cost of convenience)
I mean most products you’d sell you’re hopefully making at least 40% profit margin so everyone would still be making money. They’re just banking on you sticking around and not canceling. lots of money > some money > no money
How is 2 minutes with a chat bot half of someone’s life?
dactylothecaWe humans sometimes use a rhetorical device called “hyperbole” where we use exaggeration to emphasize our point, and it’s usually not meant to be taken literally. Welcome to the planet, hope you enjoy your stay.
Yes but the point you’re trying to get across is this is a huge amount of effort when it’s really trivial.
While I wish you a happy and healthy life, I do hope you get to experience the joys of the US Healthcare system some day to broaden your limited horizons.
Guess I’ll die.
DominusOfMegadeusIt’s cumulative dude
Yea but it works out to $87 (Canadian) for 6 different nights of meals for 2 people. Delivered to my door. I suspect their angle is using this to just keep you from churning at a loss in hopes of just keeping you around in case you go back to paying regular price. The amount of meat, vegetables and dairy in the box along with cost of shipping and paying people to assemble this order, the cost has to be damn near $87 if not a little over.
Like I said, I don’t criticise anyone for using the service, and the more affordable it is, the better, but trust that they are definitely not working at a loss, in the same way supermarkets, that would probably still charge less for the same items, do - by making you believe they’re selling to you at just about what it costs them to get by, when they are selling it to you for significantly more.
Dropping pricing down to a reasonable amount by making you jump through hoops instead of pricing it fairly in the first place?
That is like praising someone for stabbing you instead of shooting you.
I mean, I’m choosing to use this service. If it felt unfair I’d just buy the groceries myself. They’re not a charity, you’re getting a premium service and there are costs associated with this. I don’t think it’s priced unfairly to begin with, it falls somewhere between buying your own groceries and getting takeout. The value is saving me time figuring out recipes, gathering the ingredients and getting a different meal every night, this is the value you pay for. I don’t know why people expect these companies to just give this service away.
Pricing something fairly is not just giving it away.
I don’t know why people expect these companies to just give this service away.
Idk if you’ve noticed but there seem to be a lot of people on Lemmy who are opposed to the theory underlying the profit motive. If your product or service is priced above cost then it is automatically bad. 🤷♂️
Smart.
Those of you getting Netflix, Peacock, NFL or other TV subs, note that the cancel button will likely give you long-term discounts too.
USE THEM
The problem is the same as with the telephone answering trees.
If they’re used to help you get where you’re going, then they’re great. But that’s not the best financially motivated decision. Solving your problem costs the companies money. Pissing you off and convincing you that your problem shouldn’t be fixed saves money on support.
So making you go round in circles is the machine doing EXACTLY what they want it to do.
That’s an additional problem.
But the bigger problem is that it’s not actually possible to do a good job without genuine meaningful investment in building out the tooling properly.
That’s just it…… they are building it out properly, their goal is just not what you think it is.
If it worked for most shit and escalated to a human when it actually needed to, reliably, I’d be fine with it.
If you think that’s how it will be implemented, I have some beans I’d like to sell you.
I’m really not sure how you read my post and got that impression.
The answer is always, the service will sick until you leave for another company.
Then you’ll find out sucks just as much there, cause you have to buy from someone
In my experience the AI assistant is just trained on the information available on the firm’s website.
In 2024 I never just call a company expecting to be able to be assisted by a person. It’s always quicker and easier to figure out how to interact with said company online. The only times you call are when it’s not possible to resolve your query by interacting with them online.
That being the case, the entire purpose of the AI in this case is just to make it less convenient to call them. “Have you tried to resolve your issue online? Are you really sure about that? Maybe I could paraphrase this blog post from our website written by an intern 12 years ago.”
90% of people calling support lines are due to questions that are in the top 10 ten on the FAQ. They’re just the type of people who don’t like reading and just want a social answer. The same kind of people who get told “just do a search, this is asked weekly” on Reddit.
If there was a way to direct the “I just need a FAQ that I don’t need to read myself” people to an LLM and the “something is actually broken I need real help” to people, that would be ideal.
apfelwoiSchoppenLOL, as if they care about what consumers want.
We have decided that you want something else instead. Take it. Now.
Admiral PatrickHey, I didn’t know Apple had a fediverse account.
Hi, Tim Apple!
Consumers getting anything is just a byproduct of profits. They’d sell you shit I a box if they could. And some literally have.
Ooh, there’s a fun question:
Would you rather:
An AI handle customer service, or
An overseas call center handle customer service
?
Already out there in certain ways. There’s a restaraunt near me that uses an automated system to collect orders in the drive-thru, and puts them into the system incorrectly.
At least that’s what seems to be its purpose, because it does that really well. That, and piss people off.
I’ve tried that system at a rallys and damn do I hate it. Miserable to talk to and it fucked everything up.
That sounds like what I want to do when working customer service
There’s this boomer obsession with making it listen to human speech…
Nobody under 40 wants to use human speech to talk to an AI. We don’t want to us human speech to talk to humans most of the time, especially if we don’t know them.
But they always want to jam an AI into areas where human speech is the main communication method.
The absolute last place AI should have been deployed is answering a phone call. Because that is the last resort for most people, but the boomers calling the shots still think that’s people’s go to move before trying anything else
While some of this is cultural, it’s also about accessibility. Old people want to use their voice because their sight is often less reliable and they aren’t as good at pushing the right buttons. My father for example is functionally blind and voice is all he has. So before we get mad at boomers calling all the shots, let’s consider that they’re not just old fashioned. They’re old. and so will you be one day.
wagesj45Let's be honest here: they want a human to abuse. They want to be shitty to and verbally assault someone that they view as being "lower" than them. If the AI works well (a different conversation) then people will get over any trepidation they have rather quickly. The people that are legitimately upset will just miss having someone to put down for "only" working customer service.
Let’s be honest here: they hate that the companies are jerking them around and using bullshit programs to cause even more problems, instead of employing people to solve the problems.
You have a trauma history in customer service? What are you on about? This isn’t why people are calling customer service.
Or maybe they just want their issues resolved.
Most people using customer service aren’t assholes.
AI can only give you the options it was programmed to give. A Human is able to actually think and find a solution or direct you to a solution.
Your options are less with AI for customer service.
AI works best for applications that it is tailored for. But expecting it to "think" like Humans do is so far off. AI is being fed so much biased information and that is not "thinking" or learning.
Your options are less with AI for customer service.
AI works best for applications that it is tailored for. But expecting it to "think" like Humans do is so far off. AI is being fed so much biased information and that is not "thinking" or learning.
redditReallySucksTo be honest ai could replace Microsoft support. Be it on chat or forums.
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealthit can give you other options too.
I went through a phase of making the ai robot agree with me that it was the “email flange” that was causing my issue before transferring me to an operator.
Exactly! If I am calling customer support, it's because I have exhausted all other options of finding a solution to my issue, and I have a feeling I'm searching more extensively than the options that this AI is being fed. If I've reached the point of calling, I need someone that can think of a creative solution.
Exactly! And AI is just another automated machine. Google or DuckDuckGo can usually do better. AI wants us to put Glue in our pizza!
There’s a NYT article somewhere, and I’ve been desperately trying to find it, about a woman who worked as some kind of real estate(?) call center AI augmenter. Essentially people would call in about listings or something, and she had to step in when the AI went off the tracks or didn’t know how to answer questions, matching its tone/inflection while refusing to acknowledge that there was a human stepping in. She ended up being super burnt out from the job. So the whole system was just super redundant, awful for the people working there, and as we’ve come to expect from AI, just a half-baked turd sold to some MBAs for a mint.
A lot of “AI systems” are literally just a dude in India. Outsourced human labour is cheaper than building and running a proper AI driven system, but companies want to say they’re “incorporating AI” because it makes shareholders dicks hard.
I think I know what you’re talking about. She was also a chat room operator for an only fans creator too , right?
You know what, it was the n+1 piece! Thank you!
SteveDinnIf AI is better than the existing -prompt systems, then I’ll take it, but I doubt it will be.
Chemical WonkaThe inescapable dystopic future is ahead of us all
The companies will profit again now with your voice being used to train AI
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆When I call somewhere and get a live person I ask for them to give me the machine because a machine is easier to deal with.
They may hallucinate but they’re less likely to lie for now. I can’t count the number of times I saw or heard some bullshit being told to customers to appease rather than help. And it irks me to no end every time I get a rep like that.
I don’t blame the workers. I blame the corporate bullshit that actively encourages it by dangling bonuses and taking away if a customer doesn’t feel that their issue was resolved. Call centers suck ass for both customers and employees.
How harrowing it is to hear someone a few cubicles away scream at one poor review by the end of the month that lost them a bonus for some bullshit that was out of their control after enduring so much abuse.
I dislike the fact even more then the idea.
Called a bank recently.
They: "please say in a word the subject your call is about so we can immediately connect you to the right department "
Me: “LOAN”
They: you said “limits on your cards”, 1 for yes 2 for no
I tried 3 times, gave up. They won, I guess.