AI Customer Technical Support Is FAIL! [View all]

Yesterday, our household lost its WiFi. Like most people, we live on it. Even our TV is fed by WiFi. Except for the local broadcast channels, which we receive from an antenna.

Anyhow our WiFi is an Xfinity product, and the account is associated with my wife's cell phone, so she undertook to make contact. I had to go out to do some other things, and figured we'd be back in business when I got home. Nope. She had only been able to contact Xfinity's AI Technical Support system. The "Technician" walked her through the basic processes for reestablishing the connection, but without success. "I'm sorry we were unable to correct your issue," the disembodied voice said. "Goodbye"

Well, that ruined the evening for us, for sure. Xfinity is serious about hiding any voice communications with a human being. I suggested we use cell data until the morning. We could try again then.

So, first thing in the morning, my wife goes back on the Xfinity site on her cell phone, using cell data. Lo and behold, there is a message for her, telling her to choose a time window for a visit by a technician. It would have been nice if the AI had done that, but OK. At 9 AM, a nice fellow showed up in an Xfinity van. I showed him where the WiFi modem/router was. He took one look at it and said, "First, we upgrade that old box." Within half an hour, the new equipment was in place, online, and we were back, with even higher performance.

What is my point? Well, I guess it's that they do want to provide you with the services they offer, but they have not figured out how to handle issues that come up. Their AI system is not cutting it, except that when it couldn't help, it automatically forwarded the problem to wherever they keep the human beings. It just didn't bother to tell us, because, well...stupid humans anyhow.

Moral: If you wait sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.