Burn the planet/ treat customers with contempt

[Aphrar22]

• Multiple problems with my broad band so thought I'd contact EE by phone.
• All I wanted to do was talk to an agent, but the menu options only allowed for redirection to the AI bot before the call was cut off.
• As I thought, the bot is not able to process more than a basic problem and is incapable of understanding nuance, multiple issues and human frustration.
• To cap it all was informed that I would be charged for the messages I sent in response to the bot.
• Funnily enough, when I selected the 'I want to cancel my subscription' option a human agent was with me within a minute.
• Glad to say the human agent was fantastc: listened to the issues; analysed the problems and sought to fix them (bot advice: watch this video).
• Will be looking for an alternative provider that doesn't fob its customers of with AI that gobbles up water and electricity and makes all of our lives worse.

[Matt_124 · Accepted solution]

Some phones will inform the user that texts to shortcode numbers can be chargeable: in the case of 66033 (the diagnostic bot), texts to this number are free-of-charge.

Additionally, not everything is "AI". Texting "HELP" to 66033 links to a system which has been in use long before AI (text-input large language models/chatbots) was commonly available. You cannot chat with this and it does not understand text outside of the few words such as "HELP", "PHONE", etc.

EE however does use AI within their app, but this is something that can be largely avoided by using the alternative channels to contact them.