> If those companies using chat bots are failing to provide value, then they won't be competitive and they will go away.
The difficulty is, this is obscured to the customer.
Let's say I have a broadband account in a country with competitors I can choose between (eg the UK, where I can have BT or Virgin). I've already chosen the best package for me. I'm ringing up after six months of good service to fix my intermittent line drop.
The chat bot is terrible and I have to wait until the problem goes away on its own.
Unfortunately for me, I can't just guarantee that switching to the other service will make a difference, because chat bots are not core service. I can compare broadband options and pick the best, and I'm already on that. Now I have to gamble that some combination of:
(broadband option) + (customer service) is higher than the one I'm on.
Unfortunately for me, I have no way of checking this. There's every chance that I'll end up on a worse broadband option and a worse customer service option.
If you want decent support as part of the core offering you can pay a bit more for Andrews and Arnold, their support staff are in the UK, all technically capable rather than KB parrots, and available by IRC. Lower customer contention for their shared bandwidth so it doesn’t slow down at night is another thing worth paying a bit more for. And they have a decently technical control panel web page.
The difficulty is, this is obscured to the customer.
Let's say I have a broadband account in a country with competitors I can choose between (eg the UK, where I can have BT or Virgin). I've already chosen the best package for me. I'm ringing up after six months of good service to fix my intermittent line drop.
The chat bot is terrible and I have to wait until the problem goes away on its own.
Unfortunately for me, I can't just guarantee that switching to the other service will make a difference, because chat bots are not core service. I can compare broadband options and pick the best, and I'm already on that. Now I have to gamble that some combination of:
(broadband option) + (customer service) is higher than the one I'm on.
Unfortunately for me, I have no way of checking this. There's every chance that I'll end up on a worse broadband option and a worse customer service option.