How does we support?

Many thanks to the AI. I shiver every time I have to call any support line. But let’s not beat this dead horse all at once. We do hate AI-powered support. But there’s more than one way to screw it up.

You can easily screw it up by outsourcing your support to some overseas company that handles it with questionable knowledge and a poor ability to communicate with your clients. Or do you prefer to frustrate people who really need help by letting them talk to some poorly programmed robot that keeps them in a loop until they go mad?

Come on.

Support means help provided to someone.

Help means making it easier for someone to do something by offering one’s services or resources.

Read that again: offering one’s services and resources. That apostrophe-s at the end means the person giving help is supposed to offer something — their own services or resources. So when your customers call your company for support, you’re expected to give them exactly that. And it’s just as important to your company as sales or collecting money.

You can’t just use AI to deflect a few annoying requests. You’ll only create more annoying ones.

Actually… I’ve changed my mind. Please do offer AI as your first line of support. Makes my job easier. How?

Simple:

“Hello Mr. White, are you a customer of Joe Jones & AI Company? Got it. Thanks. Well, we offer the same service, with two key differences:

1. We’re more expensive.

2. We provide live support from a US-based call center.

Yes. Yes. Yes. You can send the payment using the link below.”

Easy. Anyone can take your clients now — just offer them a real person instead of AI, and they’ll happily pay extra.

Look, what works for Amazon or Microsoft won’t work for you. Your company doesn’t need to funnel all ten incoming calls into an electronic holding pen. Just pick up the phone, help them, and upsell. Easy money. They’ll buy more — as long as you show up for them.