In the era of smart phones, people's daily lives are highly dependent on mobile apps such as takeaway, taxi, social networking, and travel. If all goes well, once there is a problem, finding a human customer service that "understands people's words" is sometimes not an easy task.
Last year, the artist Xie Na had to complain on Weibo because she could not log in to her WeChat account and could not contact the WeChat customer service. Only two hours later, Tencent customer service replied that the problem had been solved. But the "star effect" obviously doesn't apply to everyone.
Such problems exist not only in one family. According to an online survey of 48 apps conducted by the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Protection Commission in May, more than half of consumers encountered customer service problems. Among them, 23.6% could not find human customer service or there were phenomena such as "kicking the ball" in human customer service. Some netizens joked: the result of the popularity of intelligent customer service is to let users no longer find human customer service?
How hard is it to find human customer service? Nandu· AI outposts test 20 commonly used apps in social, e-commerce, business travel, takeaway, video and other fields, including WeChat, QQ, Weibo, Zhihu, Douban, Baidu Tieba, Xiaohongshu, Momo, Soul, Taobao, JD.com, Ctrip, Fliggy, Didi, Meituan, Ele.me, Damai, Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili.
The evaluation results show that the steps for multiple apps to jump to manual customer service are cumbersome and hidden; nearly 50% of apps do not set up online real-time customer service. Nandu· Ai outposts have failed to find real-time human customer service for Douban, Momo, and Weibo, of which Weibo does not even have a channel to submit feedback on the problem.
1
There is no real-time human customer service for the three apps
Judging from the above 20 Apps, the types of customer service are mainly divided into three categories: online customer service, telephone customer service and message feedback - the first two are real-time replies, which can be further subdivided into artificial intelligence (AI) customer service and human customer service; most of the reply to the message feedback category needs to wait 1-2 days.
It is worth noting that Nandu · The customer service evaluation of the AI outpost only includes the above three types of situations in the App, as well as some cases where the phone can only be found through network search, excluding the situation where the user actively contacts the account of the small secretary and housekeeper of the platform.
Nandu· During the evaluation process of AI outposts, it was found that most of the customer service entrances of apps use text communication, and AI customer service will reply first by default. Only if you manually enter "human customer service", or describe the problem after the AI customer service can not solve, can you transfer to the human customer service.
Among them, 11 Apps such as Meituan and Taobao can successfully find online human customer service by selecting manual customer service options or entering keywords such as "manual customer service". The 17 models can find the phone number through the phone or search engine provided in the app, and then contact the human customer service.
The telephone customer service of some of these apps is only for some businesses. For example, Bilibili's telephone customer service is only for the game business, Xiaohongshu's telephone customer service is only for the e-commerce business, and other services have not opened telephone customer service. WeChat and QQ can only contact the corresponding customer service for game and payment services, while the customer service phone corresponding to the account business has not been answered.
It is worth noting that Nandu · The AI outpost has never been able to contact the real-time manual customer service of Momo, Weibo and Douban. Among them, Douban and Momo only replied through the feedback mechanism. During the evaluation period, Nandu · The AI outpost failed to contact Weibo's human customer service through the above three channels.
Specifically, the vast majority of app's manual customer service is mainly online text replies, and they are relatively easy to find. Generally speaking, online customer service will first guide users to look at the "frequently asked questions" to find answers, and if users choose online conversations, they will first jump out of AI customer service. If it can't be solved, or the user insists on transferring to human, it will jump to human customer service.
In terms of telephone customer service, most apps do not set up a simple and convenient telephone customer service entrance for users, only Fliggy, JD.com, Didi, Ele.me, Ctrip, soul six Apps have a "one-click phone" option, or provide a contact number in the customer service page.
The evaluation process also appeared a "ghost hit the wall" situation - for example, WeChat's "account and value-added services" customer service phone line for ten minutes, still can not find the human customer service, and AI customer service will repeatedly persuade Nandu · Ai outposts back within the app to solve. When calling the Weibo customer service phone, after the user selects his own problem type, the voice assistant does not transfer the human customer service, but lets the user return to the App to solve, forming an endless loop. When calling Momo's customer service phone, it also received a voice prompt to let users find online customer service in the App, and then the phone automatically hung up.
Jump to the manual customer service step 2 is cumbersome, requiring multiple rounds of keys, requiring multiple rounds of keys
Nandu· The AI outpost observed that customer service is usually within the "My" page, and can be found within three steps after opening the app. However, there are also some App customer service settings that are relatively hidden and cumbersome, requiring up to 5 clicks to enter the page, such as QQ, WeChat, and Xiaohongshu. In addition, the customer service pages of Douyin, Kuaishou, Baidu Tieba and Douban require 4 clicks to enter.
Such apps with hidden settings usually do not set up real-time online customer service, but use the problem feedback mode. For example, Xiaohongshu needs to enter the feedback page in "I - Settings (Gear Icon) - Help and Customer Service - Feedback - Other - Other Questions"; QQ can enter the feedback page in the "Personal Avatar - Settings - About QQ and Help - Feedback - I want to speak" in the upper left corner.
For Apps with real-time online customer service, after entering the customer service page, it is usually not possible to access the human customer service with one click, but it is necessary to enter keywords such as "human customer service" before the system will be jumped from AI customer service to human customer service. Most apps can be transferred within 3 times of entering "human customer service", and some App settings must first briefly describe the problem before providing manual customer service.
There are also some apps that need to wait in line after AI customer service is converted to human customer service. The average results of nandu's evaluation in different time periods were: Taobao, JD.com, Ctrip, Fliggy, Ele.me, Meituan, Didi, Bilibili, Damai's manual customer service replied within 1 minute, while Douyin and Kuaishou needed to wait for a long time, but not more than 10 minutes.
In terms of telephone customer service, only 6 of the 20 apps can find the phone customer service button or phone number within the app.
For those who do not provide telephone contact information in the app, Nandu · AI outposts are also trying to find and test through channels such as the company's official website and web search. In addition to some services of Weibo, Douban, Momo, weChat and QQ, Nandu · AI outposts have contacted the phone manual customer service of other apps.
However, there are some common problems with telephone customer service.
Some apps do not have a dedicated customer service phone, and online searches can only search for the phone of their company. For example, Nandu · AI outposts want to find customer service on WeChat and Baidu Tieba and can only call Tencent and Baidu's customer service phone transfer, reducing the efficiency of finding customer service.
There are also apps that only have phone customer service for specific services, and these services usually involve consumption. For example, Xiaohongshu's telephone customer service only handles e-commerce business, while Bilibili only has a game business with telephone customer service. Nandu· The AI outpost queried three numbers of Tencent's customer service telephone, corresponding to minors' games, payments, and account services, the first two numbers can be smoothly connected to manual customer service, and the number of account business has not been answered by human customer service.
Nandu· The AI outpost searched the Internet for two phones of Momo Company, one could not be connected, and the other voice prompted "find online customer service in the App", and then the phone automatically hung up. The phones of the remaining 19 apps are equipped with human customer service or intelligent customer service.
Among them, in addition to the telephone customer service of Taobao and Bilibili game business can automatically be transferred to manual, the telephone customer service of other Apps will broadcast "xx business, please press x" for users to choose. Among them, Zhihu and Soul will directly appear in the first round of broadcasts "manual service please press 0" option, users can directly go to the manual. In the remaining Apps, users need to click on several rounds of numbers to transfer labor, and even sometimes follow the voice prompts for several minutes, and finally can not find the labor.
Nandu· AI outposts found that some app manual customer service portals are hidden under the category of "other problems". If a user selects a clear category, it is likely that human customer service will not be found, and if the user selects "Other Issues", it is more likely to find human customer service.
In addition, after finally arriving at the manual customer service entrance, there are also some Apps that need to wait in line, and the customer service of WeChat and QQ account services even queues for more than ten minutes without answering.
3
Social apps are the hardest to find human customer service
From the perspective of the field, the manual customer service of social apps is the most difficult to find, and some can't even be found.
In contrast, most of the e-commerce, takeaway, takeaway and short video Apps have set up a dialogue window in the app that can directly find customer service, and after selecting human customer service, they can also talk to human customer service within a certain period of time. However, most of the social Apps use the feedback mechanism as a communication channel, and a small number of Apps that have a customer service window in the App cannot find human customer service from the dialogue window after actual testing.
For example, although Weibo's customer service function is not hidden, it only has an AI customer service mechanism that contains a list of questions and options, and there is no option to transfer to manual customer service. Even if you enter keywords such as "human customer service" multiple times, only the machine will respond.
In fact, in Weibo, there are more opportunities to find human customer service methods such as private messages such as "Weibo Little Secretary", or posts in Weibo help super talk. However, Weibo did not inform users of these methods on the customer service page, and these methods are not 100% effective - Nandu · AI outpost august 12 private message Weibo customer service, so far there is still no manual reply.
In addition, not all apps have real-time live or telephone customer service. Nandu· AI outposts found that such situations are concentrated in social and forum apps, including WeChat, QQ, Douban, etc., which only provide a customer service mechanism of "message feedback".
For 7 apps that do not provide real-time human customer service, Nandu · The AI outpost also conducted actual measurements and found that Douban, WeChat and Zhihu replied within 24 hours, and Momo and Baidu Tieba replied within 24 hours. QQ and Little Red Book have not replied for more than three days.
The "message feedback" mechanism has two forms of expression, one is to submit feedback - the user encounters a problem, describes the problem on the feedback page, uploads a screenshot, and then clicks submit, waiting for a reply, such as WeChat, Douban, Xiaohongshu, etc.
The other is to leave a message in a dialog box – the user can initiate a question, but the customer service is in message mode. Users need to describe the problem, and the platform will reply within 1-2 days, such as Zhihu, Baidu Tieba and Momo.
Although the wait time is longer, the response of the message feedback customer service may be very stylized, and the response is no better than other types of customer service. And because it is a single-line communication, it is difficult for users to ask questions, otherwise it is a few days of waiting.
For example, Nandu · The AI outpost submitted a specific question about the public account on the WeChat feedback page, and got a reply two days later: "Regarding your feedback, please follow the page prompts to operate." ...... Or visit the public platform to view product-related issues. "However, the actual problems have not been solved.
And in Baidu Tieba, Nandu · The AI outpost left a message asking about the account, and the reply was "Suggested appeal." The appeal process is...". But in fact, Nandu · The AI outpost has failed to appeal many times, and the platform's reply has not helped. On Momo, Nandu · AI outposts have encountered the same problem.
There are also some Apps such as WeChat, Douban, one of the feedback pages is the user's contact information (optional), the note "convenient for us to contact you", Nandu · The AI outpost filled in the phone number every time it submitted feedback, but did not receive any phone feedback.
4
Field Visit: Half an hour to solve the problem
There is no manual customer service entrance, the message feedback mechanism does not work, and the customer service telephone searched on the Internet cannot be called... In the case of "desperate", Nandu · Ai outposts have tried the "ultimate solution" – go directly to the company and ask.
Nandu· According to the owner of the account, the APP did not give a reason for blocking the account, and the rejection information could not find an explanation for this behavior, and even limited the number of appeals: "You... The submitted complaint for functional restoration was dismissed for reasons: The penalty was verified correctly and the original judgment was upheld. There is only one chance to appeal each month. ”
Nandu· The AI outpost first tried to contact the app company with the customer service in the app, but because the account has been blocked, this feature is also shown to be unavailable. Nandu· The AI outpost has also tried to contact customer service by phone many times, but it has not been able to connect. Thus, Nandu · The AI outpost goes to the company and informs the front desk staff of the problem. Half an hour after registering the account information, the account will be unblocked.
However, the vast majority of users will not choose such a costly solution to the company. How can the situation of "not getting a response without being on the spot" improve? The app's staff said that whether or not to improve customer service settings is an internal issue of the company, and the corresponding handling method is not obligatory to inform users.
Netizens who are struggling to find artificial customer service have also explored some "doorways" to quickly find artificial customer service. For example, the complaint portal may be able to find a laborer faster than simply selecting the business you need. Some methods are more extreme, but they have gained recognition among many netizens. Some netizens shared their experience of finding customer service on Zhihu, and in the case of AI customer service repeatedly asking him to fill in feedback, the user repeatedly entered "I want to jump off the building", which immediately became a manual reply. Many netizens who left comments said that this method is "really useful".
Of course, dealing with the inability to find human customer service in an extreme way is not something to be encouraged. How can enterprises meet the user's demand for manual customer service within a reasonable range? Nandu· AI Outpost will try to answer the question in the next part.
Producer: Nandu Artificial Intelligence Ethics Research Group
Written by: Nandu trainee reporter Hu Gengshuo reporter Li Yaning
Draft: Lin Yongxi Hu Gengshuo
Video: Prince Lai
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