Battling Customer Service Chatbots is Getting Worse with AI

Customer service chatbots are notoriously aggravating as they waste time hitting you with questions that trap you in prompt loops, often designed to delay and deflect you from speaking with a human agent. But I dove right into the dark pits of hold-music hell this week because I moved homes and needed to set up internet service at a new location. After spending more than three hours on the phone, with multiple phone calls to two internet service providers, I can confidently say that the chatbots are not up to the task of doing what a human representative can accomplish. But those bots are good at one thing: wearing down our sprits. In this episode of Tech Therapy, embedded above, I needed to vent about the odyssey of finding knowledgable humans on a customer service call and how the tech barriers are increasing. Without speaking to a human, at one point I was asked if Verizon could use my voice data as a security fingerprint for my next call. No, thanks -- I don't need to give up my v ... Read full article.