Feeling Powerless Against AI, Chat Templates and Customer Support Loops

Big companies can act big mean

I was dealing with chat support for a company. It’s in my best interest to not reveal who they are at this time. They sent me to 5 different departments. Each time telling me the same thing:

Don’t worry. I’m here to help you resolve your issue. 

Then a few minutes later:

It would appear your case is better handled by this other team that handles this kind of case.

Then after 5 transfers, I was informed I had reached the maximum level of support. There was nothing more that could be done. I’ve never heard of this maximum level, one that was just front line agents with no escalation flow. 

I was stunned, baffled and felt powerless. I was also glad that if I don’t get what I want, the loss I will take is small. My empathy went out to the people with real issues who face this kind of brick wall. There are just better ways to bounce your client. 

I spent years in Zendesk learning how to manage that kind of thing. It’s a deliberate choice to create an endpoint where the template used mentions verbiage like maximum level of support. At this time my issue is not resolved and I still feel a way so here we are.

Automated customer service solves most cases easily

One of the reasons I’m not afraid of AI taking customer service jobs is I was part of projects to automate customer service. Client cases can be split into two main categories.

1 - Easy cases where a template solves the answer.

2 - Hard cases where a single case can take hours, sometimes including meetings across all levels of a company, to resolve.

Automating tools are a net positive for customer support. Chances are you won’t be talking to a person at first. There will be some level of AI/Chatbot there to assist you. They will ask you some questions, ones that are data driven and actually make a difference. As long as your problem fits into one of the options you see, you are in the 80% plus of people who contact support. Your answer lies in a well written knowledge base article.

While you may want to talk to a person and feel heard, your answer is probably right there in written form. If you read it and get your case solved, you really don't need to talk to a person and feel heard. You got your answer. 

This means automation, done correctly, buys your team back time. 

Dealing with hard cases takes way longer as life gets more personalized

When automation deflects all the easy cases your team can focus on the cases that really require attention. The hard cases. 

These are the situations where something falls outside the realm of normal policy. An example may be a pricing error where the system glitched and the resolution is beyond the scope of a front line agent’s authority. There could be some issues due to someone on the team lying to a client. There are a lot of unique anomalies that require consideration. 

Often these cases come with longer case logs and it can take 25 minutes just to figure out what is happening and what needs to be done. You need to assess everything, confirm what has been said to the client and what solutions have already been tried. Often the front line agents will escalate the case after trying, and failing, to resolve it. They need someone with real authority to intervene.  

This is the ideal scenario. What we are all hoping for when we go, can I speak to a manager please? I’m sure plenty of people abuse the escalation process in the hopes of gaming the system. I know people who used to brag about getting free stuff out of phone companies.

Every now and again there are going to be cases that really do need intervention. In my case something strange happened that is outside the normal parameters of the system. It literally needs someone to look at what happened and to choose to help me, or not. 

Bouncing me to other people and not following up is a choice. They can’t even respect me enough to hide behind their terms and conditions and give me the answer I don’t want. 

Companies know you aren’t really going to fight them

I recently had a situation with Nissan related to my car loan. It has since been resolved. Nissan did not compensate me in any way for the time lost despite it being their fault. I lost at least 4 hours dealing with Nissan. There is very little I can do because at the end of the day I still owe them money for my car loan.

I’d rather keep the car than feel like my wrongs have been righted. 

There are circumstances like when you are a direct employee for a company where you really do have a lot of power (at least in Quebec). There are other cases, like when you are a client, where your power is very limited. A company can choose to take reputational hits.  

In almost every case, the lost time, or money is negligible. A couple of hundred bucks at most. I know for a lot of people that is real money at a given moment. In the grand scheme of things it’s a blip in the radar. This goes on both sides. The company can probably afford to make things right by paying. But it’s also cheaper for a consumer to take the loss and move on.

Social media sensationalism and other such things don’t really change anything. I’ve seen companies lambasted for foul business practices. Tweets and other posts gaining millions of views. People rah rah’d for days. Then no one changed anything and people just accepted this is how the company moves. If you want their product/service, you need to put up with their crap.  

If that company makes a fire product, or is an industry standard, they don’t really care what you, the individual, thinks. Especially when they have giant B2B deals in play.

At least I got an article out of the deal

When you are writing daily, you jump at whatever inspiration pops up. I have no ability to take on these companies and win. Even with Nissan, when all is said and done they resolved my issue, and played honourably. I don’t like that I lost time. The fact that their support department could have communicated better internally is moot. 

The smaller amounts of money that cause us to stress, are also not worth the time fighting. I feel dumb, like I got played by the company I’m actually mad at (not Nissan). I learned my lesson and shouldn’t have been so eager to jump into something without questioning if it makes sense. 

I can apply more due diligence and will be more careful in the future. That will let me get over it and take the L on the chin, recognizing that being right isn’t worth blocking my blessings. Sometimes shit will happen and you need to just suck it up.

I feel better, thanks for reading.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone