[jsbg]

That was a scene in The Office. The salesmen phone the cheaper competitor's customer service while on a sales call to let them see how long they would wait on hold if they needed support.

That said, I had an experience recently where the chatbot replaced the phone tree that led to a human and it was very helpful.

[ryukoposting]

Chatbots seem to work fine as long as your request is on the happy path.

Call your bank to get a cashier's check? Great.

Call your bank because the cashier's check never arrived in the mail, and you need to recover the money, but you closed the account the check originally came from? Forget it.

[ben_w]

TBH, this is also my experience with humans.

Spent about 18-24 months with E.ON trying to convince them that the street they'd sent the bills to didn't exist. Eventually had to contact the Ombudsman.

And E.ON don't even have the worst reputation for customer service in their domain.