Is customer service bad on purpose?

Published November 3, 2022 at 10:00 AM EDT

A United Airlines Customer Service Center at Denver International Airport in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

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When the digital gadgets and online services our lives are built around don’t work –welcome to the nightmare that is customer service.

You have a problem with your cell service. Or your printer. Or your cable service. So, you go online for help. And up pops the chatbot.

“It says, ‘Ask me anything!’ And you ask it something and you get a few questions in and realize that it’s not going the way you want. So, you pick up the phone and you call customer service.”

Press one. Press two. Try to find a human, but you can’t.

Today, On Point: Is customer service bad on purpose?

Guests

Jeannie Walters, founder and CEO of the customer experience consulting firm, Experience Investigators.

Jared Spool, founder of Center Centre, a user experience consulting form. Former professor at Tufts University’s School of Engineering Management.

Also Featured

Marc, employee at a call center in Florida for a mobile phone company.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.