I hate chatbots. Customer service needs humans

My TV set-top box stopped working last night. I tried fixing it and even powered off the unit for five minutes, but it didn’t help. I turned to tech support through the app and encountered a set of questions that didn’t address my problem. I keyed in my question, and the screen stood still, testing my patience.

Frustrated, I turned to the chatbot, which sent me a self-help link to a video that was of no use to me. Finally, a call to customer service did the trick.

This is my latest encounter with chatbots and customer service avenues. Last week, I kept punching in my 16-digit credit card number and four-digit T-pin to try to reach my bank. At every turn, I was asked to punch in a total of 20 digits. I’ve done it so many times that I can reel them from memory.

It was plain frustrating.

How customer service has changed

I prefer to deal with a human, but I’ve to jump through several hoops besides punching 20 digits before reaching a queue. Then I’m told several times that my call is very important, but all the customer service agents are busy. Time for some music! But that wasn’t music to my ears.

Times have changed, and customer service has changed. Mundane tasks are automated, and chatbots handle routine queries and requests. I get that. But sometimes, things aren’t straightforward.

In the case of my TV box, it may need replacement. I know that because a technician had called me several times at night offering to replace it. I declined it since it interfered with my sleep routine. I seriously didn’t want a technician tinkering in the living room while the rest of the household had gone to bed.

How humans make a difference

Now, I can’t tell a bot about this. Nor can an automated answering service resolve this. I’ve to speak to a customer service agent. And it worked.

There’s nothing like human interaction, even if it’s a call centre thousands of kilometres away. Some issues can’t be pinned down to a few questions. In many cases, even solutions aren’t simple.

I couldn’t view my loan account in the app or website. An employee from the loan section called back following a complaint to tell me that my current account and loan account are separate, and hence it can’t be viewed with a single login. I couldn’t understand, simply because it’s the same bank and the same customer. It needed an elaborate explanation to convince me, and I was offered a workaround solution.

Now, a chatbot couldn’t have done that. Not even an automated service could have addressed it. Which is why humans have to be at the forefront of customer service.

In the name of efficiency, we have lost the human touch. Sad!