Talk to O2’s robot? No thanks, I’m jumping ship

As an O2 customer, I’d like to thank you for the warning that the company is planning to replace its customer-support team with robots (Issue 497, News, page 7). I’ve not been very happy with their service recently (poor signal, lacklustre customer help), so now I’ve got the perfect excuse to jump ship.

In your news story you say that O2’s owner, Telefonica, thinks customers prefer to speak to automated voiceboxes than actual people. What utter tosh! I loathe the ‘press 1 for this, press 2 for that’ systems that many companies force on their customers. Worse are the questions that ask you to say your name, postcode, mother’s maiden name, blood group, favourite breakfast cereal and so on. They never understand my Scottish accent.

The great thing about speaking to an actual person is that you can ask follow-up questions. You can’t do that with a robot that has been programmed to communicate in a very limited way. I know some people may claim that there’s little difference between a call-centre employee and a robot, but that’s just mean-spirited cynicism. In my experience people working at call centres are decent and conscientious, and do their best to help. I’ve spoken to them about lots of things over the years, often where the problem has derived from my own stupidity. They’ve always been patient and understanding. I doubt I’d get the same treatment from a robot that only knows how to say ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’.

You quote the boss of Telefonica saying that customers will end up talking to O2’s robot in a “natural and easy way”. That’s just delusional. There’s nothing natural about talking to artificial intelligence. I predict that I won’t be the only customer that O2 loses as a result of this misguided decision. Roland Hobbs