Customer service is one of the areas where the achievements of technological development are being used to the greatest extent. Companies automate, digitalise, virtualise, and add artificial intelligence to both improve and expand ways customers can contact them – should there be a need for troubleshooting, advice, support, rumour verification or any other of the numerous tasks to which any self-respecting customer service exposes itself.
The more we invest in technologies, the better our customer service becomes. At least, technically speaking. However, experience shows that the more technical it becomes, the more resistance it tends to generate among those who are expected to eagerly jump into new, advanced ways to solve problems and find answers.
While machine learning, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and other modern, technologically advanced customer service tools are developing, they are still at a very early stage on the curve to realise even a fraction of their full potential. I bet that anyone who has had an encounter with a chatbot has discovered that it is still work in progress when it comes to the ability to provide proper answers to the questions that go even a fraction outside the core. Human knowledge is still required to dig deeper into customer's problems and needs.
Often, those questions can be extremely diverse and, accordingly, challenging. The poor chatbot is honestly trying to do its best to find the best possible solution, but for a customer that has run into trouble and out of patience, good effort is simply not enough.