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Comment by ajcp

5 months ago

> but that's not generalizable.

You only referenced two companies...

EBay, Amazon, Walmart, CVS, etc.

Name a major company, then try to contact customer service and interact with an actual human.

Even if they do have a contact phone number, good luck navigating the mazes of voice prompts.

Amazon isn't actually so bad about this, but I couldn't tell you if their CSR chat bot is an actual person or mid-level AI by now.

  • For most situations, Walmart and CVS have fine customer service compared to most. You just need to show up in person. Fortunately, their business model might make that a little annoying, but not even difficult for most.

  • The challenge isn't getting customer service. It's getting someone who isn't reading from a decision tree that conveniently doesn't include any paths where the corporation has fucked up.

  • My only connection to Amazon support has been for AWS.

    Perhaps though this should be an example of good customer service where talking to a human is easy, and not lumped in with the likes of Google where its impossible.

    Perhaps your experience with the online shop is different, but frankly they're in my "good" column, not my "bad" column.

    • This is not like for like: AWS assigns reps because the dollar amounts are significant compared to your monthly cell phone bill or a purchase at Amazon. It's not surprising that buying a car gets you better customer service than renting one.

    • AWS was, indeed, very easy to reach when i did an oopsie and spent over my desired limit.

Two companies that are so gigantic they combine to a great percentage of number of "company interactions" the average Westerner has on a daily basis.

Anyway, I don't think it contradicts my point? Your company exist, mom and pops exist and there's a whole spectrum between them, so it's not generalizable.