The grim prediction comes from K Krithivasan, head of Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The second-largest company in India by market cap, it has more...
Call centres exist because people can’t get the help they need by searching. Take away call centres, and you’re just making it more difficult for customers.
Uhh they’ve all been outsourced to India for ages now, and they’re effectively useless. You’ll get someone who’s worse than an AI at understanding what you’re asking and cannot deviate from a scrip because they have no training.
I haven’t used one in over a decade, if I have an issue it’s going as an email or a comment on social media.
Can’t even describe how shitty meta support is. I ordered a quest 3 and some additionals, they mailed me everything except the quest and something else I didn’t order. Obvious mix-up, yeah? Well it took 4 different support chats and 6 different “specialists” over a month to actually process a refund, and they were still somehow stuck on the idea that the courier missed a box. An additional box under the same tracking number as another box that was labeled 1 of 1.
Never, and I repeat NEVER, buy directly from most manufacturers. For whatever reason, their customer service on the consumer purchase side always seems to suck. Buy from authorized resellers who care more about the relationship with their customers.
Did… my dad the used car salesman write this? Your post sounds plausible, but… sorry, NO ONE cares about relationships with customers. Every last company is enshittifiable & thus inherently untrustworthy
I have experience on the reseller side of the electronics business. I will tell you that most big resellers (Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, etc) will do more in situations like this than the actual companies themselves. I’ve seen it a lot. Sure, it’s anecdotal evidence, but I’ve also read a ton of complaints over the years on Reddit of similar situations.
These first party manufacturers are manufacturers first and retail shops second (or third) so they put less effort on that side.
Every hour of every day, because company won’t hire or pay for anything better.
Press 3 to have a representative call you back; You won’t lose your place in line.
Sure. Meanwhile, I get on their website and try their weird “chat” support popup, that somehow takes care of the problem hours before I ever get a call back.
This is why people hate phone support. And why I don’t trust and won’t buy products from companies who only have phone support (or “social media”, Facebook, Twixer). Give me a dedicated support email address, or something text-based (live chat, contact form) on website, thanks!
Weird. I’m only looking for phone support when there is no online support, or it doesn’t help, or can’t understand the problem, or there’s no keywords that put it in the right area, or for whatever reason is too “smart” so doesn’t work on iPhone. I don’t trust companies that don’t have call support, because they are more blatantly not supporting their products
Oh, I’ve been called by my cell operator today. Realized it’s a bot when it offered to upgrade my plan because I’ve used more than half of it. It’s 28th of this month FFS! I asked whether that’s what they mean and why would I need that, it just repeated in the same voice.
Remember back in the early days of the internet, when FAQs had frequently asked questions, and were updated in response to calls? Pepperidge farms remembers.
We handle support in our company as part of our day to day. By and large the bulk of support is people simply leaning on us, rather than relying on common sense, or using the docs. Only a small percent is what would be considered essential.
However, each industry is different. This is just ours.
Generative AI could easily help the bulk of our support load.
We’re experimenting with retrieval augmented generation for early inquiries right now. We get hundreds of inquiries that could be answered by looking at the website/docs and Q&A models with extractive or abstract approaches, or newer generative approaches are good at handling them.
Looked at four models last week, 2 vendors and 2 open source solutions, it’s very promising. Very high accuracy with extractive approaches to simple queries, an email answering bot that links to our live website, along with an offer to talk to a real person could help us out a lot.
Call centres exist because people can’t get the help they need by searching. Take away call centres, and you’re just making it more difficult for customers.
Uhh they’ve all been outsourced to India for ages now, and they’re effectively useless. You’ll get someone who’s worse than an AI at understanding what you’re asking and cannot deviate from a scrip because they have no training.
I haven’t used one in over a decade, if I have an issue it’s going as an email or a comment on social media.
Can’t even describe how shitty meta support is. I ordered a quest 3 and some additionals, they mailed me everything except the quest and something else I didn’t order. Obvious mix-up, yeah? Well it took 4 different support chats and 6 different “specialists” over a month to actually process a refund, and they were still somehow stuck on the idea that the courier missed a box. An additional box under the same tracking number as another box that was labeled 1 of 1.
Never, and I repeat NEVER, buy directly from most manufacturers. For whatever reason, their customer service on the consumer purchase side always seems to suck. Buy from authorized resellers who care more about the relationship with their customers.
Did… my dad the used car salesman write this? Your post sounds plausible, but… sorry, NO ONE cares about relationships with customers. Every last company is enshittifiable & thus inherently untrustworthy
I have experience on the reseller side of the electronics business. I will tell you that most big resellers (Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, etc) will do more in situations like this than the actual companies themselves. I’ve seen it a lot. Sure, it’s anecdotal evidence, but I’ve also read a ton of complaints over the years on Reddit of similar situations.
These first party manufacturers are manufacturers first and retail shops second (or third) so they put less effort on that side.
This has been my experience whenever I’ve phoned support.
Every hour of every day, because company won’t hire or pay for anything better.
Sure. Meanwhile, I get on their website and try their weird “chat” support popup, that somehow takes care of the problem hours before I ever get a call back.
This is why people hate phone support. And why I don’t trust and won’t buy products from companies who only have phone support (or “social media”, Facebook, Twixer). Give me a dedicated support email address, or something text-based (live chat, contact form) on website, thanks!
Weird. I’m only looking for phone support when there is no online support, or it doesn’t help, or can’t understand the problem, or there’s no keywords that put it in the right area, or for whatever reason is too “smart” so doesn’t work on iPhone. I don’t trust companies that don’t have call support, because they are more blatantly not supporting their products
Chat>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>phone
This is the one place there’s still hope: an ai could follow a much larger script, and even be helpful. It’s possible
> makes a series of confident critical statements
> hasn’t used one in over a decade
You’re right, they’re totally un-outsourcing call centres and India is no longer a hotspot of outsourced call centres.
Gee golly I really need to use them to know that nothing has changed! Not at all like I can hear it everywhere from everyone else.
Fucking muppet.
I always love how they make you go through a labrinythian menu before you get to a human as if I hadn’t already exhausted all options to help myself.
Oh, I’ve been called by my cell operator today. Realized it’s a bot when it offered to upgrade my plan because I’ve used more than half of it. It’s 28th of this month FFS! I asked whether that’s what they mean and why would I need that, it just repeated in the same voice.
Since when has that stopped any corporation from doing anything?
Unless you are an absolute monopoly, there is a point you can cross where your customers just leave.
Remember back in the early days of the internet, when FAQs had frequently asked questions, and were updated in response to calls? Pepperidge farms remembers.
We handle support in our company as part of our day to day. By and large the bulk of support is people simply leaning on us, rather than relying on common sense, or using the docs. Only a small percent is what would be considered essential.
However, each industry is different. This is just ours.
Generative AI could easily help the bulk of our support load.
We’re experimenting with retrieval augmented generation for early inquiries right now. We get hundreds of inquiries that could be answered by looking at the website/docs and Q&A models with extractive or abstract approaches, or newer generative approaches are good at handling them.
Looked at four models last week, 2 vendors and 2 open source solutions, it’s very promising. Very high accuracy with extractive approaches to simple queries, an email answering bot that links to our live website, along with an offer to talk to a real person could help us out a lot.