Is technology killing business?

[Lucan Unlordly]

What a (last) week ....I wasted hours, a good days worth trying to deal with technological incompetence.
....just pick up the xxxxxx phone!

From couriers to suppliers...................just pick up the xxxxxx phone!
Far too much reliance on systems that are simply not working. Press *1 to hold, or **2 for somebody to call you back when free.
*hang on for a fruitless 40 minutes
** wait all day without a whisper

Email: 'Sorry your order hasn't uploaded'. 'It's exactly the same as I've been sending for 3 years, can I email it or give it to you over the phone'? 'No you have to upload it on the system now for it to go through to sales'. 2 hours of back and forth faffing around and eventually a human answers the phone and says 'email it and I'll take it next door myself'. Next door? Not up the road, over the road or 5 floors up!......
PS: 'you've missed the deadline!'
........just pick up the xxxxxx phone!

PS: I know the irony of blaming technology when a phone falls into that category

 

[numbersrule]

Business now is having to relearn how to fit into the way systems operate.

Systems will become ever more prominent.

It all comes down to survival of the flexible.

 

[ctrlbrk]

technological incompetence

Ai Chat Bots wasting my time?!

I run a B2B manufacturing business.. All based online, they send us their job and we get it made. I keep getting enquiries from @gmail or @yahoo and they all look the same and sound the same. All are what look like genuine enquiries, and most have ugly Ai generated images as their 'artwork...

www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Business now is having to relearn how to fit into the way systems operate.

Systems will become ever more prominent.

It all comes down to survival of the flexible.

Systems don't operate well unless a human being assesses the data and reacts accordingly to the information provided, be it an urgent enquiry about a lost parcel that the system says has been delivered and the human says is in the depot, a job application that goes un-read or a promised return call that never materialises.

 

[Paul Norman]

In some instances, it is certainly the end of customer service.

Only this week I had one of those examples. The company concearned will only really interact with you by technology and bots. And, when it all works, it is fine.

But it didn't this week. And solving the issue is going to take hours, because even to talk to a person I have to go through a system that takes around 10 minutes. If I have to phone back, I have to go through it all again. So I won't bother - the amount is pretty small. I will just never do business with that company again.

But the truth is this. If you book a holiday and it goes wrong, if you open a bank account and there is an issue, if you buy a shirt and it doesn't arrive, you are trapped in a machine driven process that may never solve your problem.

 

[clyde123]

I've experienced this with a bank these last four months.
A ltd company - two of the directors died within 5 weeks of each other.
I was the last man standing on the bank account. So we decided to appoint a new additional director and get her registered as a signatory on the bank account.
Oh heck no! Online won't work because there's no second full signatory to approve a new one. Telephone doesn't work because they point you to online. Then when that doesn't work (again) they tell you to submit a "Board Of Resolution" (sic). How? Just email it.
Nope not accepted either. So go visit a branch. The business counter is now permanently closed. The receptionist and a person sitting with a laptop were very understanding but could only tell me to print everything and post it in.
By this time I had about 10 different case numbers. Just today the postman arrived with a package, so it seems to have all gone through now.
Note the above is a VERY abridged account

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

I've experienced this with a bank these last four months.

Yep...you can talk to a Chatbot which, on failing to understand the question, transfers you to a queue to speak to a human who doesn't understand the question so tells you to go into a branch where you sit down with somebody that doesn't have the knowledge so they call somebody so that you can ask them the question over the phone Staff training anyone?

I'm having similar shenanigan's with Parcelforce about sending a parcel to N.Ireland. Our account manager picks up the phone, gives me a number for the tech department who also pick up the phone (all good so far) who give me another number which I've called 3 times, hung on for 25 minutes without getting to the front of the queue.

 

[ctrlbrk]

Staff training anyone?

But this is not a universal problem. It depends on the company you're dealing with and also when you're dealing with them.

I have always found American Express to have excellent customer service. Barclays used to be spotty (some good, some bad) years ago, but more recently they seem to have consistently improved.

Apple also used to provide first class customer support, up to about 5 years ago - then even they started falling into the enshittification trap.

Your mileage may vary. Always.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

But this is not a universal problem. It depends on the company you're dealing with and also when you're dealing with them.

I have always found American Express to have excellent customer service. Barclays used to be spotty (some good, some bad) years ago, but more recently they seem to have consistently improved.

Apple also used to provide first class customer support, up to about 5 years ago - then even they started falling into the enshittification trap.

Your mileage may vary. Always.

I think it's becoming so.

FAQ's and Chatbots are primed to answer the basic questions but not the more difficult one's, the time sensitive one's where skeleton staffing levels make it difficult. Far too many business leaders don't want feedback on systems that are incompatible with customers need's. Particularly the wise guy (or gal) who proposed the idea as a cost cutting marvel at a board meeting!

 

[Karimbo]

i have two business websites, i do have my phone number on both of them - just felt that it needed it. Its on rhe footer of the website, maybe i need to sink it deep into support and at the bottom of FAQ index or something so they skim through the solutions before phoning.

Honestly it's a huge time suck being on the phone. it jsut ruins your workflow and customers often ask some of the most idiotic questions that is just common sense.

They ask questions that will genuinly be better to answer over emails because we have visuals and diagrams we need them to see and I can;t verbally explain sizes and measurements over the phone - its just better to demo using an image.

with cost of labour going up and up. it inevitable that we will have AI doiung a lot more stuff, icnluding customer facing stuff.

 

[Gecko001]

When businesses and customers decide to stop doing business with businesses who rely on technology to the extent that it is nearly impossible to reach a human, then these businesses will start to realise that maybe they are doing wrong.

If that does not happen, companies will continue to increase their use of bots and online-only communication. Rather than waiting until hours are spent sorting out problems, we should not deal with these companies in the first place - that could be done, but I doubt if it is easy to do.

 

[SillyBill]

Feels a little like late stage capitalism at times, where the whole system is eating itself, particularly now globalism is well-entrenched after a good 2-3 decade run.

I am not convinced there are enough customers who value high quality customer support enough to pay an actual premium. So we get what we pay for. This means the "big boys" will invariably hoover up most of the market and offer abysmal customer service to boot, knowing their competitors are doing the same. It offers up opportunities for SMEs to provide excellent customer service (to which they can make a good living from) but its not particularly scalable as most people won't pay for it.

I think we're on a trend toward more AI customer service, great for 90% of routine problems, anything out the ordinary then you basically might as well not bother, it isn't getting resolved.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

I was just about to post a new thread in the Time Out forum as it's more of an observational moan but may be relevant here?

The mis-spelling on the BBC News website has gone downhill and there is barely a day goes by without a grammatical error such as this one from a few minutes ago.........

'Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis, visibly emotional as he says how may are missing, says there is no short-term'

Is AI to blame or sloppy Journalism?

 

[ctrlbrk]

Is AI to blame or sloppy Journalism?

Definitely the latter.

BBC News used to be the yardstick against which all the other news organisations were measured, both for accuracy and editorial quality.

The fact it's gone downhill is a reflection of journalistic standards everywhere.

 

[Gecko001]

One thing that the BBC have done which I think shows that it has lost the plot slightly, is BBC Verify. Surely the BBC have journalists and journalists are supposed to thoroughly fact-check everything they publish or broadcast. It is either factual/correct or not factual/correct, so having it coming from BBC Verify does not make it any more factual/correct.

 

[alan1302]

One thing that the BBC have done which I think shows that it has lost the plot slightly, is BBC Verify. Surely the BBC have journalists and journalists are supposed to thoroughly fact-check everything they publish or broadcast. It is either factual/correct or not factual/correct, so having it coming from BBC Verify does not make it any more factual/correct.

It's not about verifying what they are reporting - it usually looks at different things - like the BBC would have reported that Donald Trump says he's found how to stop people getting Autism and BBC Verify would show how that's not actually correct.

 

[Gecko001]

Other broadcasters use journalists and news editors who stake their own reputations on checking stories before broadcasting them. How does Verify work? Are any individual staff members of Verify staking their reputations on anything they produce under the banner of BBC Verify. It is likely to produce output which is going to have its problems followed by yet more BBC costly internal investigations. I cannot see BBC Verify lasting.

 

[alan1302]

You misunderstand what BBC Verify is. This explains it bertt than me:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65650822

It's been going for a few years now so can't see it not lasting and can't see why it would affect the BBCs journalists stories/reputations and is not questioning their own journalists integrity .

 

[Gecko001]

It has been in place for just over two years. So relatively new in the field of broadcasting. BTW, I was expressing an opinion. You have expressed a different opinion, which is what this forum is all about.