If you’ve ever had a technical problem, billing issue, or just had a general concern about a product or service nowadays that had you calling a hotline, you know the drill: you’ll be put on hold until you get connected to a robot voice, which will give you a ticket number and immediately disconnect you from the call. Going to their respective Facebook page isn’t any better, as you’re probably going to get canned messages over and over until you get frustrated enough to quit.

These chatbots (I’m lumping automated customer service software here as well for simplicity) are fast becoming a problem and are currently an environment that every consumer finds themselves in. Companies are turning more and more to digital solutions to cut costs, not realizing (or probably not caring) the harm those solutions are causing their customers in terms of frustration and annoyance.

I think the biggest problem here is that even with the advent of generative AI, chatbots only use the most basic form of natural language processing. What that means is it’s not very good at detecting a person’s mood by the way they speak or type, which is something that every good customer agent should be able to tell at a glance. They’re incapable of picking up context, and almost always don’t know how to resolve complex, multi-tiered problems that don’t easily fall into pre-arranged solution buckets.

The even bigger problem here is that chatbots remove the human touch that a traditional customer service agent provides, which is a big problem. A huge part of customer service is providing solutions to problems when it’s available, and a sympathetic ear when it’s not. Chatbots rob customers of the latter when the former isn’t available, which makes them even more agitated and angry when they pick up the phone or go to a brand’s Facebook account to complain.

A lot of brands don’t seem to understand that going digital shouldn’t rob people of the human experience. Look at digital bank GoTyme Bank – they’re massive advocates of going digital, but still maintain the human touch by keeping customer service reps around their service kiosks to address any concerns or problems they may have. This “phigital” touch is the best of both worlds and represents the best-case scenario when it comes to resolving customer concerns.

Obviously, not all brands can implement GoTyme Bank’s strategy, but they don’t have to. Telcos for example can streamline their chatbot process so that people will be able to reach a human customer service rep anytime they need to, as some things are better handled by a live, breathing, and thinking human. Not all customer concerns fall into an easily identifiable “problem bucket” that can be addressed by pre-planned and canned responses. The two telcos would do well to actually put an option to talk to a customer service rep, as there’s really no beating the human touch when it comes to addressing customer concerns. This goes for all the brands that has had the bright idea of deleting human customer service agents to cut costs.

Chatbots suck, there’s no going around that fact. The most advanced AI-powered customer service bot can’t even begin to replicate what a human being can, and I think brands need to start understanding that if they want their customers to stay with them, they need to find a way to make chatbots and actual customer service reps co-exist, or else customers will jump ship the first time they have a complex problem that a bunch of generic replies can’t solve.