You find something’s wrong with your website – alright, sh*t happens, don’t panic. First things first, you check all you can on your side (WordPress, plugins etc.), but everything looks OK.
Oh oh… then there’s one and only one thing to do: call your host’s secret… opps, support service.
And the ordeal begins.
Exception: BoostedHost is one of my host and it seems to be still human 🙂
First step
Instead of the polite competent expert you were expecting, on the other end of the chatline you find an AI (Artificial OK but not necessarily Intelligent) tasked with getting rid of the most inexperienced or naive customers by suggesting that the issue is their own fault (“Was your computer properly plugged-in? Then you probably did this, or this, or that…”.
Note: you can skip this step by just opening a ticket and hoping for a fast reply thus saving one PITA.
Second step
Once you manage to clear the hurdle (sometimes just shouting a couple of times “I want to talk to a human!!!” works fine), you’re put in contact with a junior serviceperson full of goodwill who does his/her best to understand your problem within the limits of his/her skimpy competence, to empathize with your sufferance and to praise you for your patience.
Don’t be harsh, he/she isn’t there to solve your issue but rather to pass on your complaint to a senior serviceperson. If you manage to hold your temper throughout those first two steps, you’re worthy of their attention.
Third step
The senior serviceperson sounds somewhat competent and professional (can tell a cache from a cake, and even more), listens to your complaints, suggests a couple of tests you already run as a matter of course, looks a bit annoyed that you thought of them first, then solves the issue by blaming you for doing something you know you didn’t.
Fourth step
With your nerves on edge you pay a visit to ChatGPT and tell it in detail the established facts and your hypotheses – GPT is a gentlebeing and thus listens patiently without interrupting or jumping to conclusions.
From it you get all the understanding you need to placate you and a nice list of 3rd-degree questions to grill the senior serviceperson with (“yes or no, no maybe’s!”).
Fifth step
The senior serviceperson (not necessarily the one you already met), crushed by GPT’s 3rd-degree questions, finally admits that one of them hit the bull’s eye and the problem is actually their fault.
Without a word of apology or regret for their indifference and/or incompetence – the customer’s always wrong, huh?
My crystal ball says…
Dark clouds are gathering on the horizon:
many hosting companies are excited to announce that the AI is on board, ready to ‘help’ you design your websites to your taste, no web knowledge needed – just warm up and serve.
I’m afraid that such a grand entrance will encourage the Big Bosses to regard human competence as even more irrelevant than it is today. Then why squander dear money in expensive junior and senior servicepeople while the AI can take care of the customer support as well?
Let me hope that at least it will be ChatGPT…
However at this point I’m wondering if there’s still space enough in my cellar for a small, old-fashioned tower desktop to configure as a server 🙁
