The customer service is getting smarter, but it is getting harder and harder to solve the problem——
Answer the wrong question! It takes 50 minutes to transfer labor
Aviation, telecommunications, e-commerce...These industries closely related to consumers are all rushing to the era of artificial intelligence, and after-sales service has fully introduced "machine customer service".
With AI blessings, services should have become more efficient and convenient. However, when fighting with robots many times, they often encounter problems such as unanswered questions, long waits, and endless loops of operation. Consumers can’t help but ask: Pass Why is it so difficult to find a real person to communicate with the customer service phone?
Queue to transfer to labor is a hurdle all the way
"Please press 1 for business inquiries, 2 for recharge and invoices, 3 for business processing, and 4 for password services and shutdown..." After dialing the customer service number of the communication operator, the user will hear such a voice content.
After saying this, the customer service voice introduced: "If you need manual service, please press 0." The option of "Manual service" was put at the end. Many users often didn't hear this one, so they couldn't wait to choose others. Press the button, but found that the conversation is still with the robot.
You must listen to a long list of voice prompts, which is often the first hurdle in the process of transferring a user to a manual customer service.
In the process of passing this pass and starting the transfer, the customer also faces the "dissuade" pass, which means that the current traffic is busy, and it is recommended that the user use self-service voice to "quickly" solve the problem.
For example, Spring Airlines customer service will continue to suggest changing the consultation channel when users are waiting in line for transfer, such as logging in to the official website to consult online customer service and so on.
In the process of queuing, the user has to keep pressing the designated number key, select "Continue waiting" or return to "self-service voice service". If you do not perform any operation after hearing the instructions, you will get stuck in the middle and can no longer receive manual services. .
The voice repeatedly "persuades you to quit", which makes many users who are in urgent need of consultation miserable.
The same is true for banking, where manual services are all “tailed”.
The reporter dialed the customer service number of ICBC, and the "Manual Service" in the button menu was also the last one, ranking ninth.
There are even many people who are "blocked out" by the voice assistant outside the button menu, or are "automatically hung up" after customs clearance, and there are many obstacles to finding "people".
Is there anyone on the big online platform?
In traditional businesses such as communications, aviation, and banking, the difficulty of finding people is concentrated in too many links and long waiting times.
However, some Internet platforms have left consumers wondering whether they have human customer service?
The citizen Mr. Xu called to the summer hotline of this newspaper to report that the child registered a certain mobile game of NetEase with the parent's mobile phone number and related information.
Since the child is underage, Mr. Xu hopes to contact the relevant staff of the NetEase game platform to set the corresponding youth ban mode for the game account bound to his mobile phone number.
However, regardless of the official account, website or customer service phone number of NetEase Games, they are all intelligent customer service, "there is no option for manual customer service at all."
In desperation, Mr. Xu had to leave a voice message in the background, but a week later, Mr. Xu did not receive any reply.
The reporter found the relevant consultation telephone through the public account "Netease Parent Care Platform", and the call was still smart customer service, and chose the service of "Minor addiction prevention setting consultation" to learn about relevant regulations by receiving text messages.
Click on the URL provided by the SMS and enter the "Netease Parent Care Platform", and find that parents want to restrict game accounts and must provide detailed information, such as game name, game account or ID.
If you do not understand the specific situation, the anti-addiction mode cannot be set at all, and it is "no way to go" if you want to block the account.
When the reporter called the NetEase game customer service switchboard, it was also a series of machine voices asking for the name of the game: "Excuse me, what game do you want to consult? Please tell me the name of the game directly, and we will transfer it for you."
The reporter tried to explain "Unable to provide game name", or provide vague or incomplete game name, but only received the answer of "Sorry for not catching it, please repeat it again." The operation fell into an endless loop.
Citizen Ms. Hou reported that she called the Hema customer service hotline and repeatedly asked for "transfer to manual customer service", but the voice assistant on the other side seemed to be unable to understand, always answering the wrong questions, and could not find the entrance to manual service.
Citizen Ms. Liu called Ele.me customer service many times, but the other person always replied "Manually busy", and then the call was "automatically hung up".
I can’t find anyone online
Many consumers insist on switching to manual services, do they not want to try intelligent service methods?
In fact, when consumers need to call to solve problems, these problems are often complicated and personalized, and it is difficult to solve them through intelligent services in different categories.
Citizen Ms. Hou said that the reason she called the Hema hotline was because similar problems had appeared several times, and the intelligent customer service could not eliminate her confusion.
A few days ago, Ms. Hou bought fresh products for her mother on the Hema App, but Hema notified afterwards that two-thirds of the products were out of stock. She hopes to find out the specific situation through the customer service.
The reply of the intelligent customer service was "because the online and offline stores are selling at the same time, there is no guarantee that the goods will be available". Ms. Hou was not satisfied with this and asked to transfer the manual customer service inquiry, but it was still unable to connect.
"The answer of the intelligent customer service is too mechanized. This answer does not convince me, but I have not been able to find a human customer service." Ms. Hou said.
Citizen Ms. Chen's problem can not be solved online.
"My flight back to Shanghai from my vacation was cancelled because it contained a child ticket, which cannot be refunded on the App." Ms. Chen said that when she was waiting for the transfer of the manual service according to the customer service phone instructions, the voice assistant unexpectedly prompted "Need 50 minutes to wait. ".
To wait for nearly an hour, Ms. Chen felt very tormented, but "had to wait."
She said that if the problem can be solved quickly through online operations, she will not make this call. The call is "rushed to the manual customer service."
The reporter learned from industry insiders that intelligent voice customer service is mainly for diversion.
For example, the customer service of airlines is divided into business segments. There are domestic tickets, international tickets, frequent passenger services, and VIP services. It is difficult for a customer service to understand all services.
Therefore, in the early stage, it is necessary to use intelligent voice diversion to match the demand and the service provider.
However, at present, there is indeed a problem of too long waiting time for customers in some periods.
For many people, "manual" is a way to ask for help when smart services cannot meet their needs.
However, for the elderly who do not make good use of smart technology, manual services are often the only option.
"My mother told me about the shortage of fresh produce. At least I still have some online operations, but my mother is already in her seventies and it is difficult to deal with this issue alone." Ms. Hou told reporters.
The enterprise saves the worry of users
It is undeniable that the application of machine customer service has effectively reduced labor costs and improved service efficiency for enterprises, and the service experience is also continuously upgrading to "full digital intelligence".
But this does not mean that machine customer service can completely replace "manual" and become the norm for customer service in various fields.
Without caring, high-quality, and sincere service, the more powerful the technology, the more troublesome we are.
Many consumers lament that customer service is becoming more and more intelligent, but specific problems are becoming more and more difficult to solve.
Using a standard-model customer service system to cope with users with diverse needs is actually becoming a shopkeeper, eliminating the after-sales service that the company should have undertaken under the guise of "intelligence".
No matter how the technology develops, customer service is always a service to "people". From the starting point of service to the support point, "people" are indispensable.
Such as blindly pursuing "technical content" and flaunting it as "high-end and advanced" while ignoring user needs and sacrificing service quality is tantamount to turning the cart before the horse.
Customer service should not be seen as the "cost" of the company, but as a driving force for improvement, as a channel for two-way communication.
After-sales service should be "intelligent" and more "humanized".
Relevant industry insiders suggest that companies should continue to improve the intelligent customer service system from the perspective of user needs, effectively improve the system's adaptability and recognition capabilities, be good at using big data to collect and analyze customer service appeals, enrich the knowledge base of questions and answers, help robots learn, and improve intelligent customer service At the same time, it is equipped with proper human customer service, which allows man-machine collaboration to improve the efficiency and satisfaction of serving consumers.
For special groups such as the elderly, it is recommended to implement "one-key transfer" for manual customer service.
Our reporter Ye Wei volunteer He Jingwen Song Xinyu