The Human Touch

Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath wrote to customers saying that Verizon customer service has “taken a different path” and the company is raising the bar on the customer service experience. This sounds a lot like communications with customers I’ve seen over the years from all of the big internet service providers (ISPs)–I can think of dozens of company messages telling customers that a big ISP cares about customer service. What’s different about Sampath’s email is that he also included an email address where customers can contact him directly if they are having a problem that is not getting resolved. I have to assume this will use a different email address from the one he uses for normal emails, because it seems likely that his inbox will quickly fill with customer complaints. This has me thinking about how important the human touch is with customer–having a real person to talk to who can solve a problem. That question was prompted for me when I noticed that Verizon is touting that it has incorporated AI into the customer service process. I have to wonder if AI will be used to tackle problems sent to Sampath’s email. While big companies can pretend otherwise, we have not yet reached the time when an AI can provide the same quality response as a real person. My gut tells me that it will be a huge mistake for the big ISPs and carriers to take the human touch out of customer interactions. If so, that’s good news for the smaller companies that compete with big ISPs. I foresee that small ISP advertising will emphasize that customers can always talk to a real person.