“Customer Service”.

[coracle]

I’m getting more and more turned off with businesses that sell me their product using perfect English but when I need help they direct me to Customer “Service” people that speak garbled English.

[Meddle]

If King Don could do one thing right in his limited term, it would be to mandate the elimination of off-shoring Customer and Technical Service.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

If King Don could do one thing right in his limited term, it would be to mandate the elimination of off-shoring Customer and Technical Service.

That will happen about as soon as he and Ivanka will manufacture their own crap domestically, and he’ll hire Americans to work at Mar-A-Lago instead of bringing foreign workers in on visas.

[cla1945]

That's why I won't vote for Shri Thanedar...he sounds too much like those Windows idiots who keep calling me about my computer being corrupted!

[slick]

If you look in the dictionary, "customer service" is not there nor in many shops.

[O3H]

You mean local customer service from the 19 year old kid that knows nothing about the product I want to buy, and reads the label to me at the store ? Thanks buddy, I can read by myself just fine.

We don't have anyone that worked at Sears Appliances
for 20 years anymore, and/or pick another example.....

[Lowell]

Not to worry. AI's are already replacing support and should completely take over in five years, if not less. They will also reply in your accent. And they will know everything you need to know.

[Jason]

Almost all of the indian tech support people you talk to speak english fluently and likely even talk to their friends in english. English is so common over there that there are concerns about the native languages being lost culturally in upcoming generations and there are efforts to promote and preserve them.

The problem is that even if they're 100% fluent native english speakers, indian english has an accent that is impossible to understand.

Here's a good video about the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJgoTcyrFZ4

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

The original post is a valid comment, but entirely unrelated to Detroit, so far as I can tell.

[ABetterDetroit]

Not to worry. AI's are already replacing support and should completely take over in five years, if not less. They will also reply in your accent. And they will know everything you need to know.

Since you chimed in...

Why do some threads that have absolutely nothing to do with Detroit allowed to stay here when sometimes others are immediately kicked to the Non-Detroit board?

Is it as simple as giving it a title like ‘What will happen in Detroit if the President can pardon himself?’ for example?

[coracle]

The original post is a valid comment, but entirely unrelated to Detroit, so far as I can tell.

I thought I was posting it under “Non-Detroit”, and when I realized I’d made a mistake there were several comments made on it and I had no idea how to rectify it - sorry!

[Dexlin]

So, this doesn't belong on this subforum...

[hybridy]

Not to worry. AI's are already replacing support and should completely take over in five years, if not less. They will also reply in your accent. And they will know everything you need to know.

If online chat is an option vs call in person I always opt for chat...faster results and written record to use for dispute resolution, assuming it’s a person typing back. Kinda cuts through the BS. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I find it superior to speaking with the apathetic dolt on the other end of the line.

[wolverine]

Not to worry. AI's are already replacing support and should completely take over in five years, if not less. They will also reply in your accent. And they will know everything you need to know.

I read and hear this all too frequently but I’m not buying it. The human need for assistance can be complex, emotional and irrational. An AI that politely recites company or product policy over and over again won’t garner your company any positive points. Actually many tech reviews of products now rate the level of human support where automated responses score a 0.

I realize google has put out some pretty convincing stuff to improve customer service but we’ve pretty much already optimized that through email and chat sessions as someone already pointed out.

[Meddle]

Not to worry. AI's are already replacing support and should completely take over in five years, if not less. They will also reply in your accent. And they will know everything you need to know.

When one of those voice auto-attendant things 'answers' a call, I start pounding on the '0' button until it gives up and transfers me to a human. Then I read them the riot act.

[Pat001]

You may not realize it but the people who have the most control over your life are anonymous clerks in call centers.

[Lowell]

If online chat is an option vs call in person I always opt for chat...faster results and written record to use for dispute resolution, assuming it’s a person typing back. Kinda cuts through the BS. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I find it superior to speaking with the apathetic dolt on the other end of the line.

I select that option too for the same reasons--an advantage of taking touch typing in high school--but not for people who can't type.

All support systems collect every question and answered created into a giant wiki-style databases. Who conveys the answers back from that, AI or human, make little difference for a vast amount of issues.

AI's begin with that all that accumulated knowledge, listen in on support calls and learn more. Ditto for speech recognition and accents. And they don't go to happy hour and home to sleep. That's the whole key to AI, they teach them selves and cumulatively learn.

They are already the front line of support. Consider all the punch this number, then # to continue steps you have to go through to begin. Most people will passively accept AI support if they get their answers quickly and correctly, which they will. A few will punch 0 repeatedly to get a human and, companies not wanting to offend, they will get that too. But the AI's, in nice smooth non-robot speech, will do all [99%] of support in a few years.

It is as inevitable as it was for the elevator operators.

[jcole]

Front line of support, be it Dell, Ford or Walmart, all operate off of a script that allows them to do quick fix simple problems. With severity, they escalate to the next line and then the next. Once AI kicks in, it will be first line and humans will still man the upper levels; they're the ones who make the decision on repair or replace.

[wolverine]

^ Automation is in the front line because the trivial questions can be answered easily by a machine, like payments or simple trouble shooting, but the majority of complex troubleshooting still relies heavily on human assistance and customers..young and old opt for human assistance whether that’s email or by phone.

The prediction that AI will totally take over within the next decade is just as misguided as denying technology will help in the first place. Customer preferences can be more important than the company bottom line by cutting personnel

It seemed like 4 years ago automated checkouts were taking over. They were literally in every grocery store and drugstore here in Chicago. Then they were all ripped out. Customers scanned stuff wrong, sucked at bagging items, machines broke, items stolen. Now my Walgreens has 8 people staffed full time at the front counter. My local Home Depot still has self checkouts, but people are assisted by employees with bagging and handling larger items and they pretty much stand there watching you scan.

So it’s still way too early to tell.

[401don]

I find being surveyed to death drives me nuts. Buy a product, use a service, call for help, walk through a store with your phone on, eat at a restaurant you get surveyed. Totally unnecessary and since the answers are not random, generally useless marketing feedback.

[jcole]

I find being surveyed to death drives me nuts. Buy a product, use a service, call for help, walk through a store with your phone on, eat at a restaurant you get surveyed. Totally unnecessary and since the answers are not random, generally useless marketing feedback.

I just give them all 10's and move on

[Zacha341]

I tune out with the exception of an occasional yelp when I feel like it...

[Honky Tonk]

I tune out with the exception of an occasional yelp when I feel like it...

You must be fun @ church...

[professorscott]

I read and hear this all too frequently but I’m not buying it. The human need for assistance can be complex, emotional and irrational. An AI that politely recites company or product policy over and over again won’t garner your company any positive points. Actually many tech reviews of products now rate the level of human support where automated responses score a 0.

This is true enough but it is unrelated to how businesses are operated in capitalist societies. A business is more likely to provide you a friendly human who dresses, speaks and acts according to your own customs when they are trying to sell you a product, because they haven't got your money yet.

Once they have your money, they are motivated to spend absolutely as little as possible on you thereafter, because you are now an unproductive cost. So businesses automate, so much as possible, your post-sale interactions with them. This is not new; how many companies do you try to call, and you have to navigate an incomprehensible maze of phone menus in order to try to get information, and in some cases you simply can't reach a human at all? This is just going to get more and more common, and worse and worse.

I do not like to bear bad tidings, nor do I usually prognosticate, but you can bet the farm on this one.

[Zacha341]

LOL! Yelp.com hah!

You must be fun @ church...