Bank of America Bot Cares About You

http://eksith.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/bank-of-america-bot/

by eksith • 13 years ago

136 47 13 years ago

eksith.wordpress.com

sharkweek• 13 years ago

Truthfully -- I respect a company that doesn't even try to offer good customer service much more than one that tries to fake it

eksith5• 13 years ago

It is a weird paradox, isn't it? Almost as if you don't feel as upset (depending on severity) if a dog bites you than if a squirrel did.

Well, dogs just bite; that's what they do. But squirrels pretend to be all cute and vulnerable and then bite you anyway if you get too close. In your head, you'd be "WTF SQUIRREL?! I TRUSTED YOU, YOU CUTE BASTARD! WHY CAN'T YOU ALWAYS SHOW YOUR TRUE COLORS?"

Man, I hate squirrels. I love squirrels too.

saraid216• 13 years ago

I wonder if this falls under the category of uncanny valley.

StavrosK• 13 years ago

This is an actual thing:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14717826/

lstamour3• 13 years ago

Hmm. But it's hard to tell what's fake and what's "good" :)

dkokelley• 13 years ago

There are some circumstances where it is best to use technology as a tool to empower humans, instead of as a replacement for humans. Customer service is probably one of those circumstances.

scdoshi• 13 years ago

I imagine they would have had a much better response if they had just made the twitter handle @BofA_HelpBot

lucb1e2• 13 years ago

I think a support team is supposed to work with the bot and the bot only initiates contact that the team can then follow up on. Or at least, that's what I'd hope. It seems the support team was afk during that conversation though...

beezlebob• 13 years ago

oh this could be interesting, a bunch of IT people arguing about automation being wrong :)

Widdershin• 13 years ago

I get that you're kidding, but no automation is better than automation that doesn't solve a problem.

lifeformed• 13 years ago

What's the "^sa" that it keeps appending at the end?

sathyabhat2• 13 years ago

Generally, it's the initials of the Support rep who's replying to the tweet.

ghayes• 13 years ago

I suppose this is all off-topic, but is that common syntax? I've never seen it before.

coob• 13 years ago

Support Automaton?

lstamour3• 13 years ago

I think those were real, un-empowered humans using a script. My favourite? The "I would feel that way too" script that Google Play uses: straight from an email, no joke, I once got "Thank you for contacting the Google Play Support team. I understand you are waiting on a response. If I was feeling ignored, I would be upset as well. I assure you I have the information for you on your return." or the variant "Thank you for your response. I understand you are having trouble with the tracking number. If I was not receiving necessary information, I would be upset as well. I assure you I have the solution for this brief hang up." (and says there is no tracking number for the item I sent in 3 weeks ago to return! So I replied I was being ignored and got that little gem above...)

I think my favourite has to be the "nothing to say here..." email which emphasizes how they should really cut down the customer service drone talk to the simple sentence "We're looking into it, I'll get back to you." Instead:

Thank you for contacting the Google Play Support team. I understand you are having trouble with your return. If I was experiencing return issues, I would be upset as well. I assure you I have the information to confirm the movement of your refund.

In order to get this issue resolved, I am going to go ahead and let you know that this matter is being consulted, and I will send a follow up email when I receive the information pertaining to your return.

Cordially,

X, Google Play Support Team

Sometimes they forget to personalize entirely, as in the one sent to kick off the botched return process: (the following is unedited)

Hello ,

Thank you for contacting Google concerning your Nexus _. My name is Æsa and I will be taking over your case from this point forward. I understand your concern and why this is important to you and will do the best I can to assist you.

eli• 13 years ago

I agree.

Look at this ridiculous conversation I had with Norton support on Twitter the other day: https://twitter.com/esd/status/352070221227503616

I'm sure they're real people working from a script, but they might as well be bot.

lstamour3• 13 years ago

Wow. That's nearly as awesome. I mean, it installed something when you uninstall, that's the problem. "We are sorry for the trouble. Do you want to uninstall the Norton tool bar? It was meant to keep you protected. -Arun cc:esd" could be taken both ways, however -- and that's my problem with tweets. Sometimes what we interpret as "clueless" is really someone just "making sure you're okay" using the given script after shooting off too quick with a support response. Not saying they read your tweet, as obviously they didn't respond appropriately about the uninstall, but the responses are consistent with the language on their site: http://safeweb.norton.com/lite (The title says "Is this website safe" and later in the page says, "It's our way of giving back to the online community.")

By comparison, emails are longer-form and less "instant" than tweets. They (Google) should have been able to get it as human as Apple did when I had unactivated iTunes gift cards. (The second time, that is. The first time took them awhile, so it's hit or miss in my experience. I've also learned to never expect real support from Microsoft Store or Adobe -- basically anyone with a "live chat" support service.)

peterkelly2• 13 years ago

I wish Douglas Adams was still alive to see this

garysweaver• 13 years ago

I wish Douglas Adams was still alive and writing.

And, someone should make marvin_bot (https://twitter.com/marvin_bot) start-up a conversation with @bankofamerica.

peterkelly2• 13 years ago

According to https://twitter.com/BofA_Help# -

"Bank of America ‏@BofA_Help 26 May In observance with the Memorial holiday, our Social Media Team will be off Monday, May 27, 2013 and returning on Tuesday, May 28, 2013."

Good to know the machine gets to take a break from its hard work now and then.

aptwebapps• 13 years ago

Maybe their Social Media Team never came back.

choult• 13 years ago

Just having a look through the current conversations on @BofA_Help, I suspect that if "SA" is a bot then it's employed to triage extreme negative sentiment; if there's an actual complaint behind it all then a real agent steps in, eg. https://twitter.com/BofA_Help/status/353641709789388800

Quite an efficient way for a customer service team to work, but I'm not sure how it's going to affect the perception of them now that people have pointed it out.

ben1040• 13 years ago

Yep. I bet the "SA" even stands for "Sentiment Analysis."

lakeeffect• 13 years ago

I have a friend that sends these out for bank of America, he works in the office of the president of the company. The company has been ahead of the curve contacting twitter complainers and finding a resolution. These form comments are actually submitted by a person, attempting to keep boa positive as an aggregate of total tweets with mention. No bot included.

sgt101• 13 years ago

Doesn't that stunningly miss the point of sentiment analysis and customer service? If you are optimizing the score with your own output in what way does the sentiment represent a proxy for any meaningful business measure like retention, loyalty or willingness to pay? Surely it's just a proxy for "we have a fella who tweets"?

hoodq• 13 years ago

Scale is the problem. Let's say this wasn't about Bank of America but rather "your favorite giant company" -- the one that has 40 million online users and 16 million mobile users. How does a relationship that large engage in a meaningful, authentic dialogue in tweet-time?

benjamincburns• 13 years ago

Personally I'd rather they just didn't try instead of faking it. The latter is disingenuous and belittles the customer.

kunle• 13 years ago

This is great. Someone obviously asked "What's our social media strategy" and got sold some "AI" by someone who said "It's just like SIRI, only better!" and this is what they bought. Sigh.

dirkgently• 13 years ago

Well, to be frank, Siri is equally good at pretending to help, without really helping. At least the bofa boat does not say anything in that creepy monotone.

clarky073• 13 years ago

I know it isn't the point of the article, but I can't understand people getting upset at a bank for foreclosing a house. Pay your mortgage and they are unlikely to foreclose.

eksith5• 13 years ago

Except when this happens : https://www.google.com/search?q=bank+of+america+wrongful+for...

You're right in that paying a mortgage will make foreclosure "unlikely", but it's not impossible. Also note, BofA was among many predatory lenders. I.E. those institutions that have outright lied, misled or otherwise duped borrowers into mortgage deals that were woefully unfit for their financial situation. They continued this practice in renegotiations for loan modification after the market crash.

This was revealed by several BofA whistleblowers: https://www.google.com/search?q=bank+of+america+whistleblowe...

Which makes payments to prevent foreclosure unlikely as well.

clarky073• 13 years ago

That's why I said unlikely. There were some issues, and those are unfortunate, but most people had it coming. As for the "predatory" lending, I still have no sympathy. If you are taking out a loan for hundreds of thousands of dollars, you should be doing your own due diligence. It's stupid of them to give those loans because they will lose money, but the guy taking that loan still needs to know if he can afford it or not.

mfringel• 13 years ago

If you pay your mortgage on time, why would they ever foreclose?

bwb• 13 years ago

Bank Of America is the worst bank I've ever worked with, just dropped them. We used them for multiple business accounts and their ineptitude is legendary. Stay away. I literally had reps that lied to us about things, left out pages of contracts etc. They were fired but its an epidemic at that place. They forgot who they work for.

Yhippa• 13 years ago

So I guess this is one mark on the "failed Turing Test" side.

Bank of America Bot Cares About You

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