I think i did once, but this was honestly a question i could have found the answer to on their site i just didnt wanna look
its always some vague bullshit that doesnt help
dunno im just kinda mad that they shove this shit in your face, make it hard to get to a real person
Every time I do a search, the bot usually provides enough info. The problem is that I don’t trust the bot because it’s been wrong before. So I still need to continue the search to find an authoritative answer.
That’s the problem with bots. If you trust their answers and they’re wrong, it can be a real problem. There was a story a while ago about an Air Canada customer service bot that was giving out bad info about bereavement travel. When a customer tried to get the promised refund, the airline admitted the advice was wrong, but claimed the bot was a separate legal entity, therefore they were not responsible for the advice it gave.
I like the approach this dev is taking with his PDF search app:
You can search in natural language, but it doesn’t try to give you an answer. It simply highlights what’s already there, even when you didn’t know the exact phrasing used in the source document.
Software can try to give me a summary with citations, but I’m gonna have to click the citations. So forget the summary, just show what would be cited! Great tech, all local in this case - hard to be “anti-AI” (common sentiment) when AI can just mean “search real good no matter which words you use.”
I recently had an important package get rerouted to a pickup box, but the incompetent driver (who did not even manage to reply “hello package” on the intercom) forgot to leave the retrieval card in my mailbox.
After searching the DHL website for a contwct option for way longer than it should take, I saw a small note stating that their chatbot can give you retrieval codes, so I decided to try that.
It was not AI powered, but provided prompts to click, or asked for very specific short replies like the tracking number. Similar to an automated phone system but with text. I took a wrong turn at some point and had to start over, but it actually worked really well and I got the code after about 3 minutes.
If it provides specific answers though, it might as well be a form. It only makes sense as a chatbot to make it easier to connect with a human using the same interface.
They don’t exist to answer your questions. They exist to frustrate you into giving up.
Kinda. I tried activating my new SIM card through the horrible web interface (oh o2 germany never change) an the interface kept bugging out. After a few tries I tried to find the hotline number through the chatbot and lo and behold the chatbot actually scanned my account and deducted that I was trying to activate my new sim card. After a few questions, the chatbot succeeded with what should be easily possible through the web interface.
In my humble opinion we should combine all support bots into one, give it a militarized body, and send it to the front. Nothing will ever get through.
