My friend Ian Jacobs likes to say "The future will just be more annoying." I'm plagiarizing him here and hope he will forgive me since he is a part of this story.
I was in London last weekend and stayed over after an analyst event. Ian was also at the event, so we agreed to share a two-bedroom place for the weekend. I found a spot on a vacation rental site that looked very nice and was in the general area where we wanted to stay. Place reserved, victory claimed.
Less than a week before the rental I received an email cancellation with three suggested alternate places to stay. The suggestions were all one-bedroom places, which was not acceptable— Ian is a good friend, but I don't want a Trains, Planes, and Automobiles experience; I want my own room.
Our stay coincided with the Pride Day Parade and Wimbledon, so pickings were slim at the last minute here. I was traveling when this cancellation was sent, so I found myself scrambling while riding in an Uber, lucky to connect with Ian to help me to identify where we should stay to avoid trying to cross town at the wrong time.
I was able to find a new place; problem solved. This was a frustrating and traumatic customer experience, but I was lucky, and it worked out.
The cancellation email included a link to a bot. I asked the bot about any renumeration for this kerfuffle. The bot was very good, dripping with faux empathy, clear and concise, no problem there. But the cancellation policy—no money lost (I don't see that as a benefit, and taking money for services not rendered is typically illegal), no renumeration, no explanation of why the rental was cancelled, and a half-hearted set of suggested alternatives that did not meet my needs was hardly satisfying. No option to escalate to a human, no way to explain the hardship and try to get some sort of recognition for my pain or give feedback on the experience, no one to yell at or cry with. Just a soulless bot that shared the policy and agreed that this was a frustrating experience.
I'm not naming names, but it's not too hard to guess who this was. This is not some backward company stuck in old ways of doing things; this is a truly tech-first company taking the technology as far as it can go in a heavily customer service-oriented industry. Sadly, there is still a limit to what technology can do, and without the human touch this interaction was an unacceptable customer experience. Will they lose me as a customer? I won't go to them first anymore, but if I can't find what I want from their competitors, I'll still try them. I'm stuck, and I'm not happy about it.
So, there is our future: The policy is the policy, and that is that, sorry, not sorry.
It is possible that I could find a phone number, get hold of an agent to plead my case, yell, or cry. Maybe I'd get something, at least I'd blow off some steam. I understand how awful taking those calls all day would be for an agent, and I understand the attraction to the company. Let's just drop those conversations; they are not productive, and they cost us money if we give in to customer requests that are not aligned with our policies. This left me with no ray of hope, the path ended with the bot.
It's annoying and frustrating, and it is something I fear we will see more often in our future.
Max Ball is a principal analyst at Forrester Research.