Shopify employee breaks NDA to reveal firm replacing laid off workers with AI
After a recent horrible experience with JetBlue customer service, it has become obvious to me that the true purpose of <i>all</i> &quot;customer service&quot; at major companies is not &quot;solve the customer&#x27;s problem&quot; but &quot;make the customer go away.&quot;<p>This seems to be true regardless of whether humans or robots are involved. If humans are involved they will be low-paid hourly workers on the other side of the planet, staring at the same web page that you are, with no more ability to change anything than you have. And it will take 30 minutes to get one of them on the phone because &quot;we are experiencing unusually high call volume&quot; which translates as &quot;the new vice president fired 10 more customer service agents to make his numbers look good.&quot;<p>If robots are involved it means &quot;the new vice president wanted his numbers to look even better.&quot;<p>Companies have apparently run the numbers and decided it is cheaper to effectively ignore and dissuade dissatisfied customers than to try to resolve their issues. And since most companies insist on binding arbitration now, they&#x27;re not even worried about class-action lawsuits.