How Robots Are Killing Customer Service

By Ben Popken May 20, 2008
5things_consumerist.flv

(Tubes)

Here is the live audio and powerpoint from a recent presentation I gave called, “The 5 Things Your Customers Aren’t Telling You.” This is number 3, “Stop Hiding Behind Walls Of Robots.” It’s all about how companies think they’re saving money by replacing humans with machines but sometimes machines can’t do jobs as well as humans, especially when it comes to customer service. I brought the point to life with a funny little story about eBay and their wonderfully inept automated email response system. I hope you enjoy the video, including the intro and outro ditties I worked up on my girlfriend’s old Yamaha synth.

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Comments

  1. RINO-Marty says:
    May 21, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    Nacio: The point wasn’t the companies. The point was skills decontenting, which you’d have realized if you had maybe 4 functioning neurons.

  2. screaminscott says:
    May 21, 2008 at 6:03 pm

    The problem is that people want to eat their cake and have it too. They want great customer service, 24/7, immediately, at extremely cheap prices.

    You may SAY you want to talk to a live person, but I’ll bet you will buy that cheap product/service from the other company that uses automated voice systems for their customer service.

    You’ll probably never need to use that automated customer service system. If you did, it would probably work well enough. Even if it didn’t, you’ll probably not be pissed off enough to switch because you’re too cheap. And if you did switch, well, you’re only 1 customer out of the 100,000 who stayed.

    If I were a businessman, I know what choice I would make….

  3. ChuckECheese says:
    May 21, 2008 at 6:11 pm

    @itsgene: I tried this once for fun, I think it was AT&T in Texas, and it disconnected me.

  4. mac-phisto says:
    May 21, 2008 at 7:38 pm

    @DoctorTormento: lol! for real.

    to comment on the article, any good asimov fan would have to point out that technically robots aren’t killing anything. they are simply doing what they were programmed to do.

    so really, we should be blaming the programmers here…

  5. defectivesealion says:
    May 21, 2008 at 7:44 pm

    Please give us the entire of the presentation, I want to hear the rest.

  6. ChuckECheese says:
    May 21, 2008 at 10:02 pm

    Ben wants us to BEG for that customer service presentation.

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