This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
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
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.
To be honest ai could replace Microsoft support. Be it on chat or forums.
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealthY'all do understand that customer service is not there for the "service" part ;)
Let'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.
Or maybe they just want their issues resolved.
Most people using customer service aren't assholes.
You have a trauma history in customer service? What are you on about? This isn't why people are calling customer service.
Ooh, there's a fun question:
Would you rather:
An AI handle customer service, or
An overseas call center handle customer service
?
Depends. Can I easily make the AI hallucinate and give me free shit/tell me something I can later use to get free shit?
iirc someone attempted that already with plane tickets
As it should be. The consumer doesn't care why the support agent offered something, if it's offered and advertised, the customer should get it. They can fix their support if it's costing them too much.
LOL, as if they care about what consumers want.
We have decided that you want something else instead. Take it. Now.
Hey, I didn't know Apple had a fediverse account.
Hi, Tim Apple!
Introducing Apple Intelligence Genius. Now you can get technical support from the comfort of your home. We think you're going to love it.
(It does nothing but tell you to reset your pram and turn it off and on again.)
"You don't need a 3.5mm headphone jack. We're removing it, and you're going to like it".
But I have several pairs of really nice, expensive headphones that need it.
"You will use this awkward dongle, like it, and thank us for our generosity"
Thanks! I love it!
The funny thing is that Apple chat support was a real person when I tried to create an account last week. Yes, they provided the normal directions to create and account which didn't work through their account creation website, through an iPad's settings, or whatever the third option was, but it was very clear it was a real human being.
Ended up finding a suggestion from reddit to go through iTunes and that worked. They use real people to provide the official directions that don't work!
If 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.
I 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.
Except 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)
If 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!
It'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)
How is 2 minutes with a chat bot half of someone's life?
We 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Uber drivers are unphased by this.
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.
If AI is better than the existing voice-prompt systems, then I'll take it, but I doubt it will be.
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.
"Talk to a human"
Repeat these words over and over. Most automated phone systems are programmed to bail out when its clear the customer is just flat out unwilling to engage with their bullshit.
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.