Have you ever had a successful encounter with a customer service chat bot?

[Kendodd]

YABU - Yes, plenty of times.
YANBU - No, never, just frustration and failure.

No because the chat bot just wants to tell me info I already got off the website. If that was the info I needed ... I'd have got it off the website.

I've had success with them a couple of times, but only when doing something really straightforward which I'd have expected to be doable on the website anyway, like cancelling a subscription or changing some profile information on my account.

With anything more complicated the best I can usually achieve is finding the magic words to get to chat with a human instead, and even that is frequently more diifficult than it should be.

Never that I can remember. I either end up with it not understanding what I want, or telling me to contact customer services (every other Thursday, 10.30-10.35).

Nope. I hear they're training the British Gas one to take over the torture duties in the innermost circle of hell.

They are getting slightly better than a couple of years ago but I still spend most of my time saying 'I want to speak to a human ' until eventually, I do.

Yes - Amazon. Picked up a package from the locker, only contained 2 of the 3 items. Went on the bot and picked something like "item not delivered".

It brought up my recent orders and I selected the order.

It brought up the items in the order and I selected the one that was missing.

it asked if I wanted a refund or a new one sending. Selected refund. Money back promptly.

Tbf though, having had a Royal Mail and DPD issue this Christmas shopping period, I just accept that no one comes close to Amazon so they may be the outlier.

I've found if you answer all questions with "I want to speak to a human", you will be transferred.
Whether they can speak your language is another matter!

Yes. Surprisingly on Temu. It quite literally throws refunds at you to avoid putting you through to a human.

Nope- try Cora at the Natwest bank- 7th circle of hell! There are some funny reviews on trust pilot - 'never call your child Cora' wish I'd seen them before engaging.
Small part of my job used to be be handling online chat at work- that part of the job has been replaced by a bot now. People were so surprised they got to engage with an actual person who could deal with their issue and not send endless phrases from the website. Occasionally I asked for their number and rang them and sorted stuff out.
Lost my shit one night on the O2 website 2 hrs getting increasingly shitfaced trying to sort new phone contract but luckily still had the option to go into the physical shop and sit down with a lovely human who sorted it mostly by phoning a mate in the technical bit!
I've been dealing with the death of my mum. My sister took over the bank bit as I was ready for a breakdown. Nat West shot themselves royally in the foot as I have inheritance to invest but would never ever consider them they are so fucking inept. Not just Cora but the real humans you get through to with persistence.

Yes, River Island coat didn’t arrive, delivery company said lost in warehouse, River Island chatbot cancelled order and refunded quickly, offered 10% discount on reorder.

And O2 story above: changed contract to Sim only online, no bother.

Yes - ikea chatbot helped when we had some furniture with a small fixing missing.

Alerted insurers to a speeding conviction, easy peasy.

Tread started as about to spontaneously combust in frustration trying to get past a phone line chat bod and speak to a real person at a council. I have been completely and utterly defeated by it, chat bot 100 - me 0. No matter what I say I never get put through to a real person. I've tried emailing but get an automated reply saying 'email is not monitored please use our helpful chat bot phone line'. Ahhhhhhh! Maybe the council plan is people throw themselves off the nearest cliff after calling the chat bot thereby reducing the number of callers though death. Could this by a big AI plot to take over the world one frustrated caller at a time?

Anyway, I've now emailed the councillors, let's hope they don't refer me back to the chat bot!