[quantified]

I love the ability for companies to design call trees that prevent customers from getting help. For example, Expedia recently rolled out changes that prevented some people from logging in. But all routes (phone, chatbot) required an existing reservation to get ahold of any help whatsoever. Even needing to enter an existing valid itinerary number, which maybe you'd be unable to retrieve because emails only held a fragment, you needed to log in to get the entire id. The assumption was that the tech was flawless. And, if you used subterfuge, like locating a number for hospitality providers and getting transferred, the human scripts did not allow for anything that wasn't based on an itinerary.

From the Expedia's point of view, the fact that a persistent customer might penetrate their walls could be cynically seen as a pain point.

From the customer's point of view, the thing that sucks isn't the tech but the design of customer service itself.

[inquisitiverab]

Good point. But do you think they do this mainly because they're short staffed?