Sponsored message
Logged in as
Audience-funded nonprofit news
radio tower icon laist logo
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Subscribe
  • Listen Now Playing Listen
  • Listen Now Playing Listen
NPR News

Is customer service bad on purpose?

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

This story is free to read because readers choose to support LAist. If you find value in independent local reporting, make a donation to power our newsroom today.

Listen 47:34

Sign up for the On Point newsletter here

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

Sponsored message

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.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our connected community. We are free to tell the full truth, to hold power to account without fear or favor, and to follow facts wherever they lead. Our only loyalty is to our audiences and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen our community.

Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive from readers like you will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.

If this story helped you today, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.

Your tax-deductible donation keeps LAist independent and accessible to everyone.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief

Make your tax-deductible donation today