“Um, that’s not a fault of the technology. I set up some of those systems - when you encounter those situations, it is because the company that bought the system *wants* it that way.”
I’m sure that is true. It is certainly not the fault of people like you who set up the systems. And I’m sure the technology exists to use state-of the-art voice recognition and AI to provide amazing customer service.
In practice though, customer service departments use automated systems to save money.
If they can’t afford to have competent human beings screening every call and directing it to other human beings as appropriate, they also can’t afford the state-of-the-art AI technology either.
And as with most cost savings strategies, the cost reductions come at customer’s expense.
Like most people, I encounter these call answering “rabbit holes” when calling to question a charge, a package that didn’t arrive, a product defect, or to order something. I call utilities, restaurants, schools, the government, manufacturers, distributors and who knows what.
I can assure you the ones I encounter not state-of-the-art technology.
They are dumb-as-shit systems designed to save the company the cost of hiring human beings - they waste a ton of your of time collecting redundant and irrelevant data before they offer any options. Then the options they do offer rarely include the option you need, or it is unclear whether or not they do.
Meanwhile, the voice recognition software fails half the time, and drops your call. There is not much more frustrating than having voice recognition software say “Sorry, we didn’t get that. Goodbye.”
By far, the most useful feature in these awful systems (if you are lucky) is the escape button where you can hit zero at some point and finally talk to someone.
I hope the ones you install have that!
0 for operator is also configured as the client specifies. If they don’t want it, it’s not there.
FYI, those systems aren’t AI at all other than optional speech recognition. On the other hand I generally don’t have a problem using a phone voice recognition system, and neither do the majority of Americans. Speak clearly, at a measured pace, in a quiet area and they do fine. Do NOT get loud or shout at it - at least some of them can be configured that an apparently irate caller shouting at it will deliberately be disconnected. Which, when I worked at a call center, was something I dearly wanted to be able to do on calls with idiots.
Also, a good voice menuing system is actually cheaper than one receptionist - and able to handle much higher call volumes with greater accuracy.