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zamadatixyesterday at 5:31 PM1 replyview on HN

AI support generally sucks but I actually wouldn't mind if everyone used it for the initial call routing portion. Beats an IVR tree or waiting for someone to just redirect your call to the real queue.


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el_benhameenyesterday at 5:56 PM

I respectfully disagree with the initial routing point. I very strongly prefer a traditional tree to “I’m your voice assistant! In a few words, tell me how I can help!”.

The tree is structured and gives me an immediate sense of how to map my task to the support offering. If I’m calling, I probably have an issue that I can’t self-serve resolve via the customer portal or whatever, so walking the tree lets me get an idea of who can help.

The “voice assistant” gives me no sense of what the system is capable of or how to take advantage of those capabilities. So I’m left guessing at phrases or functions based off of the assumption that there’s still some kind of tree-like structure that’s been abstracted away. Same outcome, more cognitive overhead, plus I usually have to shout in my best William … Shatner … impression to get it to understand me.

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