Technology

it makes sense to guide the customer through the most common solutions first, as that will likely solve the problem.

And this why you have to suffer through those lengthy recordings that tell you about a bunch of shit that generally doesn't apply to your situation before you can even use the menu, much less talk to a person. I am disabled, I have had to be on the phone with the Social Security Administration, Medicare, my insurance company, and various state benefits agencies probably 15-20 times a year for the past ~14 years, and I can count on one hand the number of times those 'common solutions' were even remotely applicable. I don't even need fingers to count the number of times they have actually contained the solution to my issue, because it has literally never happened.

Once you get to a person who can make an assessment about what's going on it makes sense for them to cover a few basics (I used to do tech support, I know how much time a simple, 'Are you sure it's plugged in?' can save), but replacing customer service with AI means you're pretty much stuck in those recordings for your entire call. Now to be fair this can be done better than most places do it. I shop on amazon a fair bit (can't drive so I order most things online) and when I have issues I honestly prefer dealing with the livechat AI than calling because it's a much faster and smoother experience and they can quickly bump you over to an actual agent when there's a weird thing going on that's outside of its scope. But most companies don't have Amazon's customer service budget to do shit like that well, so usually what I get is 'If you're calling about XYZ, hang up and dial this number. Did you know that if your birthday is on an odd-numbered day blahblah-ad-blahblah? If the crescent moon is waning and the distant hills are draining and the watchful eye is straining...' etc.