Robots make decent pizzas, acceptable lattes and, as I've experienced on multiple cruise ships, damn fine martinis.
You can automate recipes, repetitive tasks, and really anything that follows specific parameters every time.
But you can't automate customer service, especially when a customer has a problem.
This, of course, has not stopped companies from using artificial intelligence chatbots in ways that are especially maddening.
Comcast (CMCSA) has a virtual chatbot that acts as a gatekeeper for its human customer service personnel. You might be able to get some very basic info from the chatbot -- like how much you owe -- but any request for useful information gets you nowhere.
Typing "person" does eventually get you to a human being (who is often equally unhelpful), the AI chatbot very clearly does not work and it's hard to believe that Comcast does not fully understand this.
Lowe's (LOW) has similar issues, but they actually go deeper than its AI chatbot. The home-improvement giant has a very frustrating system full of broken technology that's supposed to communicate to customers when their orders will be delivered.
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Lowe's Has a Customer Service Problem
I ordered a Weber (WEBR) two-burner gas grill on New Year's Eve with no expectations of delivery. Lowe's sent me an email and a text telling me that my delivery was scheduled for Jan. 2. That seemed unlikely given that that day was a federal holiday, so it did not surprise me when Jan. 2 passed with no delivery.
On the evening of that day, however, I got a text from Lowe's telling me my grill would arrive on Jan. 3 between 1:30 and 5:30. That's a fairly large window of time, but I assume I'd get more information the next day.
Lowe's texted me on Jan. 3 at 7:14 a.m. telling me that my order was "out for delivery." That's a hopeful sign, but given that I need to communicate with the guard desk at our complex so the truck can enter, it wasn't really enough information. Fortunately, there was a helpful link in the text. Or so I thought.
Clicking that link took me to a generic web page for a Lowe's that was not the one from which I ordered my grill. And it had no information about my delivery.
There was, however, a chat icon on the page, which I made the mistake of clicking.
The chatbot responder, which identified itself as "MyLo," seemed as if it would be helpful. But it routed me to a series of choices that never resulted in an actual answer. I gave it my email, then my order number, and all it told me was that my order had "shipped."
Asking any additional questions simply sent me back to the beginning.
Lowe's, Like Comcast, Must Fix Its Customer Service
Once Lowe's had my email and order number but could not tell me anything about my delivery, it was very clear the system was broken.
Tracking my order via its website also simply told me that it was "shipped," until about 11:15 a.m. when that method showed me that my grill was on a truck and set for a 1:30-5:30 p.m. delivery.
That's an improvement, but the overall experience was full of broken processes. No company should send you a link that takes you nowhere, and chats should visibly and easily offer the option to speak to a real person.
But Lowe's, like Comcast, has little competition on many items it sells. In this case Home Depot (HD) offered the same grill; so did Amazon (AMZN), but the online giant did not offer free assembly (which Lowe's did, while Home Depot didn't but had a lower item price).
As a customer, I had very little choice and Lowe's knows that -- just as it knows that its chatbot and overall customer service are frustrating at best.
The company, like Comcast, appears to have decided not to invest in delivering good customer service. It may say otherwise, but using AI chatbots that don't work and making it hard for customers to reach actual customer-service staff is a choice Lowe's has made. It needs to fix this.
