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Bank forced to rehire workers after lying about chatbot productivity, union says

(arstechnica.com)
308 points ndsipa_pomu | 1 comments | 21 Aug 25 15:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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taylodl ◴[21 Aug 25 16:29 UTC] No.44974720[source]▶
How many times has a chatbot successfully taken care of a customer support problem you had? I have had success, but the success rate is less than 5%. Maybe even way less than 5%.

Companies need to stop looking at customer support as an expense, but rather as an opportunity to build trust and strengthen your business relationship. They warn against assessing someone when everything is going well for them - the true measure of the person is what they do when things are not going well. It's the same for companies. When your customers are experiencing problems, that's the time to shine! It's not a problem, it's an opportunity.

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no_wizard ◴[21 Aug 25 16:34 UTC] No.44974777[source]▶
The only time a chatbot worked for me is Amazon's, of all things. It auto approved my return after I answered a few questions.

I haven't had any chatbot outside that be useful to me. I always end up getting to the end of all the prompts only to be told I need to speak to a human or the chatbot going in a circle, in which I have to reach out to a different layer of support.

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rtkwe ◴[21 Aug 25 18:08 UTC] No.44976085[source]▶
I think that's partially because Amazon returns are the most happy path support interaction I've ever seen. They basically always grant the refund/return (in my experience if it's soonish after purchase) and it's mostly about gathering the info to get it going rather than actually resolving an issue. The main decision on Amazon's side seems to be if they want you to bother sending the item back or not.
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1. FireBeyond ◴[22 Aug 25 00:58 UTC] No.44980003[source]▶
> The main decision on Amazon's side seems to be if they want you to bother sending the item back or not.

Hah. I had to argue with a chatbot and representatives when a bottle of shampoo arrived shattered and the Amazon package was filled with shampoo.

They literally said "put what remains of the product into a bag and return to UPS Store". I explained the absurdity, but no. So I duly show up at UPS who, to no-one's surprise but Amazon's, didn't particularly want a zip lock bag with 16 oz of shampoo in it.

And then they sent me a replacement bottle that broke similarly.

They didn't try that route again, but similarly, explaining that the "free replacement we sent you" was also delivered damaged, and I was still out money with no shampoo to show for it, also took a lot of effort. "But I see we sent you a replacement item, so you can't also get a refund." "Your replacement is also broken." "Oh, I thought that was the first bottle." "It was, too."