Personally, if a company can't provide support where you speak to a human, I'd prefer that they be honest about that - rather than having my hopes raised then dashed and my time wasted by a chat/phone/e-mail contact that doesn't go to a human.
I worked on some IVR implementations some time ago. Quite a few would interpret and understand swearing, and route you to a human via a priority call queue. Similar for multiple button presses of the zero key.
Chatbots aside, Comcast and United Airlines continue to be big consumer businesses despite horrible customer service reputations. Socially it's bad, but economically it's hard to justify spending that much on customer support. (Those companies also enjoy semi-monopoly positions, though, so I wouldn't recommend emulating that unless you enjoy a similar position in the market.)
Comcast is a monopoly, with a huge barrier to entry.
People complain that UA hasn't learned anything about customer service. I am surprised that those people haven't learned anything about UA, and are still flying it. (Perhaps it's because flyers don't actually care about customer service, and will take whichever flight saves them $15.)
I'd rather talk to a chatbot than:
- the same (or worse) bot over a phone
- someone who only vaguely speaks my language
- nothing/nobody at all
- someone who speaks my language but spends 10 minutes and 30 "thank you"s to tell me they can't accomplish what I need
The only form that wins out is a living person who is well-trained and speaks my language well. Most companies already won't provide that.