No good deed goes unpunished, right?
I suppose we all mean well, but isn’t it true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?
I have left my Alma mater, meaning well for everyone involved. For the company, the younger colleagues, myself to some degree. I have learned (again) that whatever one’s plans are, if some people are right, God, the creator, the grand architect, or any denomination anyone might use, is laughing…
The same with this blog. Decided today is a good day to clean up spam comments. I found in them the biggest repository of links to pornographic content embedded in those comments. I’m so happy I decided to moderate the comments…
I also (today) discussed with a client on the topic of presented work so far and of course, the dreaded by them future invoicing and decided to drop the topic, project and withdraw my involvement destroying the data and in-process admitting to myself that better this way than the alternative issues-at-every-step in strange cost avoidance strategy.
In a way, I feel ashamed on behalf of those who in fear of what covid-19 restrictions will do to the(ir) business world behave in such a petty way. Should they read this topic, well, it is meant for you… Fool me once shame on me, there won’t be a second chance, shame on you.
It also made me think of all honor agreements one makes with vendors throughout one’s involvement in a (software) portfolio and I can’t help but wonder, how long will those be honored in these times of turmoil, fear, and insecurities.
As I’m sure everyone knows by now, some major vendors have announced their interest in auditing their own clients thereby opening the long-discussed topic of cannibalization of their own customer base. This is when all the petty topics will start showing up on agendas and the internal IT as well as “IT hired guns” aka consultants will have more than enough to do just communicating and responding to demands.
I was once asked about milestones in my professional life which I answered that I believe that realization that it’s “All ‘Bout the Money” which incidentally and instantly reminded me of a song by “Meja” from her album “seven sisters” so I tried not to laugh right out, right there, at the interview.
So what can I say, my brain is wired weirdly, it’s like a huge database where any value may be a primary key linking various values together, each potentially a primary key, related or not. So it’s like the lyrics of that particular just mentioned song. I do find another world in my mind…
This relating to SAM can be helpful to identify an executable without performing any lookups and making a decision on known internal policies, all in a flash of a second because all that information is readily available and ready for the brain to instantly act on it, should the operator choose to.
Meanwhile, I see everywhere bots are implemented on the web to perform basic customer service. It is called grandly AI. So far not noticed any intelligence, but artificial, whatever it is, I’m sure it is. In terms of me, it only succeeds in annoying me to use one word, meaning “human” for it to place me in the queue awaiting someone, an actual person, who can use their brain and help me in whatever scenario applicable to the moment.
Don’t get me wrong, I love automation, but it has to serve a purpose and provide customer value. This AI-response-engine seems rather displace customer service, one with actual people who can solve issues and problems and follow up on them. It provides a shitty, semi-automated FAQ. And all of this would be great if the companies and services in question would also reduce the cost of their products or services as part of the process. They don’t seem to though. The same with replacing actual customer service with surely well-educated people in cheap labor countries where they are pleasantly asking if they can help with something else, often after not being able to resolve the initial query.
Either “improvement” does not reduce any costs for the customers, does not provide any value for the customer, and seems only to line the pockets for the product manufacturer, vendor, or service provider as well as someone on top of some organization who talked them into buying this “crap”.
My judgment dear C level executives, albeit harsh: think global, but act locally. Hire people where they are needed, speaking the local language and knowing local customs, educate them, some of them will stay and will be proud to provide highest possible service, taking pride in their work and thus also bringing more customers to their place of work, because who would not become interested in a companies products and services meeting their fulfilled, happy and knowledgable employees?
If you wish to put an “AI” to work, let it sort cases, emails, and sending them to correct queues speeding up the initial query. That’s all it seems to be good for. Dear companies, please stop saving money on customer-facing parts of your services. Don’t you know, “you get what you pay for”? Maybe for a while, your customers, existing and new might choose to stay or become your customer despite this novelty, but take it from a customer, which I am as most people, they will look for another supplier. It is really just a matter of time. How can I be sure? I stopped using automated payment machines replacing tellers, I also now ignore service providers using “these things called AI” in regards to new services and products and I will review my existing ones too eventually.
I will not be doing any of the work that is yours to any degree and should your customer service not be satisfactory, I am sorry, but you will not get another chance to disappoint me.
And so, no good deed goes unpunished? We all mean well, but consider this: we witness surely well-meant actions, leading until now some customers to make a change in their habits. Are we on the road to hell? Which leads to another question, hell for who? For me, it is clear, if I’m paying with the money I had to earn with hard work, it will not be my hell… I’ll rather deal with people
