Hacker News Reader

Comment by muskmusk | Hacker News Reader

Why?

Have you ever sat in a customer service chat with someone who wasn't very helpful and very slow sat the same time?

There were probably handling several other chats at the same time.

Why shouldn't we replace those interactions with an AI that is fast and infinitely patient and friendly?

I am willing to be convinced otherwise, but I don't see how fighting technological progress that is net positive for almost everyone is productive here.

View on HN

I'm curious to see how empowered the LLM customer service of the future is. Are they going to be allowed to process refunds? People will find out how to convince the LLM you do meet the requirements for a refund.

And if you check the requirements using something deterministic (last order was within last 2 weeks, customer has a high loyalty points score, they're subscribed to some premium service) then why do you need an agent at all? The real point of the agent when it comes to something like that is reducing churn by making the process harder. The LLM isn't working for you, just like the human agent isn't working for you.

I do think this sort of thing could be good for digging up information though, as technical support before you get to a technician, could be good. Probably less aggravating than "Before we connect you, please turn on and off the rout-... you pressed 1, that is an invalid option. Before we connect you, please turn..."

Most requests are very routine and are basic exchanges of information. Think "how do I reset my password?".

Don't see why those can't be automated.

Eventually I don't see why an AI shouldn't process refunds. Its an infinitely measurable process and you always know the risk involved (the amount). So it's trivial to decide if you think the AI should handle it or send it off to a human for approval. I would not be surprised if there were already companies experimenting with stuff like this. Widespread adoption will probably take time.

the money saved in employee wages more than makes up for any refund fraud.

Because up to this point my experience with automated systems in banks, phone companies and web services companies has been awful even for trivial requests.

Until shit improves, I will be bashing on those and prefer companies that allow me to get human interaction asap.

Agreed. And chatbots also leave no room for discretionary exemptions. My headset microphone broke recently (after the warranty period) - emailing the company and asking if there was any way I could buy a new one netted me a free replacement and a nice note from a real person. I’m 100% convinced that a chatbot would have told me that based on the serial number my headset was out of warranty and ended the chat.

This is a shallow reading of what a “bot” could be capable of. Whoever is running customer service at that company has obviously decided that for certain situations people should be entitled to courtesy replacements. That decision was not contingent on who is taking the calls. When that person makes the decision to shift some/all workload to chatbots, he, or she could easily teach the bots what types of courtesy repairs or replacements should be considered, and the criteria they should meet.

For instance, in your case, the rep probably knew that the part cost a couple bucks and the postage cost a buck or two, so a three dollar expense was deemed well worth it for goodwill.

This is the kind of thing that a bot would be just as good at, and it’s also a thing that does not automatically happen just because the agents are humans. Some companies would fire the human rep for giving you that freebie.

Honestly, the real reason why bots will be a good thing is that 3/4 of customer service calls come from confused people who really just need handholding. Setting the jobs issue aside, which is going to be a much bigger question across humanity, eventually I’d like to see bots handle that 3/4 of calls. Half the customer service staff could be retained and deployed exclusively to handle the issues actually worth their time.

Different people different experiences I guess.

I used to work in the industry and my experience had been that companies who don't care about customer service will have shitty customer service, bots or not. The opposite is true as well.

I have seen simple request bounce between up to 15 customer service reps without the end user getting what they wanted. On the contrary I think some of the best customer service is when there is no need for customer service at all.

I feel we are legitimately getting to the point where SoTA language models could be as/more helpful than the "tired human juggling many different customers" baseline, if the implementation is done well.

Would definitely depend what you're phoning in for, though. Going through some common process, digging up information, or needing a special exception to be made?

Many "human interactions" are little more than automated bots, since they are cost-optimized call centers with scripts they are locked into with no power to act autonomously.

Almost every encounter I've had with "human" tech support in the last 5 years or so has been: 1. Me asking a question, 2. Support entering it into a computer, 3. Computer does something, 4. Support tells me what computer says. They aren't empowered to go off their scripts, exercise human judgment or to solve problems. Sadly, this work might as well be an AI chat bot at this point.

In a just world, the profits and cost savings captured by AI and automation would go to the displaced workers rather than the owners and customers, but that's politically impossible at least in the USA.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com