Question posted on AI service:
'How does anything get fixed if customer service is automated and doesn't know the answer'
AI answer would surprise the leadership!
'That's a real problem, and many people run into it.
In theory, automation is supposed to handle common issues quickly and route unusual cases to someone with the authority and knowledge to solve them. In practice, some organizations over-automate customer service because it's cheaper, creating a situation where:
The automated system only recognizes a limited set of problems.
The customer has an issue outside those categories.
The system keeps looping through scripted responses.
Reaching a human becomes difficult or impossible.
When things do get fixed, it's usually because one of these happens:
The customer finds a path to a human representative.
The issue gets escalated through a supervisor or specialist team.
Public pressure is applied (for example, through social media or formal complaints).
The company notices a pattern of failures and updates its systems.
There's also a broader organizational issue: customer service often isn't the group that actually fixes problems. They act as a bridge between customers and the departments that can make changes. If that bridge is entirely automated and poorly designed, information about new problems may never reach the people who could solve them.
A common criticism of excessive automation is that it works well for routine cases but fails precisely when customers need the most help—novel, complex, or unusual situations. Those are the situations that typically require human judgment.'
Sounds like AI is now smart enough to replace the leadership teams. And it won't slurp when drinking its coffee.