Each month, “Lochhead on Different” episodes explore the need to differentiate people, products, and services in a world that encourages a lot of imitation. Christopher Lochhead is a best-selling author, top podcaster, and former tech-industry CMO. Today, Christopher and Bob talk about the nearly impossible task of getting help from digital platforms once an AI decides to cancel your account or product. Christopher shares three key takeaways based on his experiences, and points to the opportunity brands have to get back to human-centered customer service.
Episode 23 | AI, ML, and Bots Do Customer Service
The Big Themes:
- Tech’s “cancel first” policy: From Amazon to Twitter and beyond, tech platforms seem to be far too quick to remove accounts, content, and products without asking any questions about the rule that’s allegedly been broken.
- Brands are abandoning customer service: Trying to reach a human to discuss a customer question is nearly impossible these days. Christopher points to Southwest as a remarkable exception to this rule, and encourages companies to get humans involved again.
- The limitations of AI- and ML-driven regulation: Bots don’t get sarcasm yet, and users across many platforms are dealing with account suspensions for posts that do not actually break any rules.
The Big Quote: “We have asked these major platforms for their free speech policy… They send a link, you read the link. And here’s what you discover when you read the link: the word free, the word speech, or the two together don’t appear in the document.”
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