If a website interaction has to lead me to a phone call in order to get something useful done, that website has completely failed.
Ideally I never want to have to pick up my phone at all. Customer support is an exception to that, but only as a last resort: if it gets to the point that I have to call a business, something has gone very very wrong.
I believe you two are in agreement, they go to the website to get a phone number to call the company to talk about something that needs human interaction, they cannot get any phone number at all some times, or they can only get one with a bot that says I don't understand a lot - as a consequence "that website has completely failed"
> Customer support is an exception to that, but only as a last resort: if it gets to the point that I have to call a business, something has gone very very wrong.
It is a common thing that people say - hmm, this is a complicated situation and a human needs to be talked to (probably these people don't understand how impressive AI is) and modern UX as a cost saving measure absolutely fails a customers need to talk to a human at the company they are getting a service from.
Haha, customers want to aks unreasonable or insane questions, replace a good process with a bad one and tell you their life story. They might even need to talk with a normal person about normal things. Refusal might be expensive. If you can bring an insane request within the boundaries of possibility they can't help but appreciate it.
Ideally I never want to have to pick up my phone at all. Customer support is an exception to that, but only as a last resort: if it gets to the point that I have to call a business, something has gone very very wrong.