How about this for a customer service law

[LogDog75]

Require all businesses that used a phone tree, website, or AI software for customer service provide an option to be directly contacted to a customer service representative.

On a phone tree, one of the options would be Press X to be connected to a human being for customer service.

On a website, there would be either a icon or telephone number to contact a live human being for customer service.

With AI, either verbally or written, the program would offer you the option to contact a human being for customer service.

What I'm suggesting wouldn't be much of an impact on small, medium, or large businesses. Telephone answer machines and phone trees offer the business to determine which number on their phone tree does what. For a website, there is usually a "Contact US" link. On AI, it's just programing an addition option similar to the options on a phone tree.

What do you think?

Good idea? Bad Idea? MEH?

[Shellback Squid]

1. AI operators suck, USAA is one of the worst

[UpInArms]

2. FedEx is worse

And nowhere a human

[DET]

3. I Love It

But there is a reason that companies don’t offer that option - they don’t want you contacting them. They seem to prefer that you give up in despair after selecting all the preprogrammed options and saying ‘operator’, ‘customer assistance’, or whatever else you can think of to get a real person to help you.

[Irish_Dem]

4. Our robot overlords say that is a hard no.

Please press 12 to complain some more.

[Orrex]

5. Companies would ensure hours-long hold times to speak with an actual person

They'll make sure that the person is underpaid and poorly trained and/or with inadequate resources.

They'll make sure that the person speaks poor English with a very thick accent.

In short, they'll do everything they can to avoid paying humans to do good work, if they can save a nickel by outsourcing to cheap, infuriating AI.

[pecosbob]

6. Welcome to the Grifter Economy

What was that quote from 'New Jack City'? "You have to rob to get rich in the Reagan era."

You have to sell snake-oil to get rich in the Trump era. The GOP has long been entwined with fraudsters, quacks and outright bandits.

[MineralMan]

7. Hmm....nice idea, but not going to happen.

Live customer service is a choice for companies. They make a bet on the impact of keeping customers away from talking to a person as opposed to having only non-human support systems. If enough customers stop buying, they'll have to change. If not, they won't.

There's no law coming to force them to hire a live customer service staff. Often, though, such staffs didn't provide much service anyhow, as we have all experienced.

Choose the businesses you use carefully.

[Prairie_Seagull]

8. Tip of the AI iceberg heading

our way. Sink or swim?

IMO

[flvegan]

9. So who would enforce this customer service law?

Just for the sake of entertainment, this is a proposed federal law I suppose. Who specifically is going to handle the daily deluge of complaints from the stampedes of Karens who are pissed because Amazon/Walmart/Starbucks didn't immediately rectify whatever their idiotic concerns are? What will this enforcement agency do with the mountain of one-sided bitchfests submitted every hour? What are the consequences for failure to meet the high bar of a congressionally passed "customer service law" that will oh most certainly be all about said customer?