Do you prefer bots or people for customer support?

Question

I understand that bots help to reduce the strain while handling a lot of repetitive issues. But, do you miss the human feel in the conversations ?
[ I guess the preference may be different based on whether you are a customer or a business owner, so I thought of considering both in the polls to try and get a comprehensive understanding ].

Martina Hackbartt · Accepted Answer

I like a mix of both. And maybe having the 2 options. Sometimes, when issues are the usual, bots can solve them faster. However, most of the time I find the bots not giving me the answers I need. And plenty of time is lost. Humans understand humans more easily :)

Anna Mandziuk 🇺🇦 · Answer

I understand the value of bots and think that they definitely have a place in customers support (as you mentioned, they help with repetitive issues). But as a customer I vastly prefer people, and it's so frustrating when a service doesn't provide the option.

Pablo Fatas · Answer

People all the way. So many bots eventually send you to a call or just give you the wrong info. I love the quick live chats on websites these days.

From the company side I also prefer people for customer support. The feedback and feeling you get from users is really important to have a continued understanding of what your users are feeling and want.

Kazimieras Melaika · Answer

Bots are sometimes annoying. If there's FAQ, the most important, most common questions are usually there so people are able to find the answers easily, even without support interacting. But if it's not there, it's much easier to formulate your question to a real person without needing to repeat or paraphrase it because he/her will probably understand it. But the bots can just give you an unrelated answer or just ask additional questions until gives you an adequate answer for a question. So I prefer real people dealing with real people.

However, bots are very useful. It just depends on the product/service field.

Btw, we're launching in late April or the start of May. Check out our upcoming PH page: www.producthunt.com/upcoming/effecto

Our project is called: Effecto. It’s an app for detailed health tracking. Pretty much for everything that is related to your physical or mental health and every daily factor that can affect you.

Nabeel Amir · Answer

When comparing AI to humans, strengths, faults, and comparisons all help to narrow down which side is better. While live chat is wonderful for customer support, the way a chatbot can handle several concerns is incredible. Although AI is the future of business, human customer service professionals will always provide the distinctly personalized touch that a company seeks to provide.

Brian Regan · Answer

It can be done well if the bots are used upfront to help direct your conversation to the right SME. I've used services (my bank, most recently) that told me upfront this was what was happening so my wait time would be reduced and I would get the right human on the chat.
No clue if that was true, but the communication around WHY they were using bots was helpful for me as the consumer.

Paul VanZandt · Answer

I think having bots is really helpful for business owners, and having a separate service for niche needs that is people-driven is important. Regardless of how you use bots, having people accessible is definitely a requirement for any business.

Satish Kumar Veluri · Answer

Anytime it's always people for me. It's comfortable to present our query in our own way rather than trying to fit into the bot's question's catalog. If you can't make the bot understand, we just go round & round with random questions and finally the call gets disconnected.

Do you prefer bots or people for customer support?

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