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Google's CallJoy is an AI phone operator for small businesses
Around a year ago, Google unveiled Duplex, an AI-powered feature that can call businesses and book appointments for you. Ahead of this year's I/O, Google revealed the other half of the equation, a virtual customer service agent that can automatically handle inbound calls for small businesses.
Nuance's AI uses real interactions to make chat bots smarter
Many high profile brands and companies have a customer service chat bot function on their website. Indeed, some research suggests that by 2020 conversational AI will be the main go-to for customer support in large organizations. But as the current technology stands, it's only as effective as the manual programming that's gone into its creation, and relies on the customer asking the right questions or including the right keywords to send the bot down the right branch of script. Today, though, Nuance Communication has announced a new technology that aims to make the conversational intelligence of chat bots a whole lot smarter.
Sprint lets you chat with customer service reps through iMessage
Apple's Business Chat, which lets you chat with companies through iMessage, was announced in 2017, though adoption has been somewhat slow. From today, however, Sprint customers can connect with customer service reps directly using the Messages app on their iPhone or iPad.
Apple Business Chat is now available in Europe, Asia and Australia
Apple launched Business Chat last year as a simple way for iOS users to communicate with companies over iMessage. Now, Apple has announced that there are 30 new brands you can chat with via iMessage. For the first time, some of these companies are located internationally, across Asia, Europe and Australia, marking the first time Apple Business Chat is available outside North America.
Uber brings 24/7 phone support to the UK
The whole point of Uber is to make getting from A to B as easy and convenient as possible, but when things go awry (which can include anything from confusing cleaning fees to allegations of harassment) getting in touch with an actual human on Uber's side has been a herculean challenge. Until now. From today, Uber in the UK is launching a 24/7 helpline, available to both passengers and drivers.
Apple teaches photo editing with over-the-phone classes
Many device makers give you the tools to capture and edit great photos, but they seldom teach you how to make the most of those tools. Apple thinks it can -- and unlike in the past, you don't need to show up in person to develop your skills. The company has launched an over-the-phone training program that teaches you how to edit with Photos (both iOS and macOS) in a 30-minute one-on-one session with a specialist. It'll both show how to use simple adjustments like Auto Enhance as well as deeper edits like color balance and exposure. If you have Live Photos or Portrait mode pictures from your mobile devices, you'll learn how to edit those as well.
T-Mobile tackles lousy customer service with 'Team of Experts'
It's no secret that a lot of carrier tech support is lousy. It's not just that you have to wade through menus -- it's that you're often pushed between support agents who only have the foggiest idea of your service history and are encouraged to get you off the phone quickly. T-Mobile thinks it can do better. It's launching a "Team of Experts" initiative that's meant to get you in touch with people who can actually deal with your problems instead of passing the buck.
Dish customers can chat with service reps through iMessage
Dish announced today that its customers can now chat with service representatives through Apple's Business Chat messaging service. Apple launched Business Chat earlier this year and it lets companies interact with their customers through iMessage. So far, companies that have begun providing support through Business Chat include Discover, The Home Depot, Hilton, Lowe's, T-Mobile and Wells Fargo. Dish says that its customers will be able to ask live agents questions, make account changes, schedule appointments and order pay-per-view movies and sporting events with Business Chat.
Jeff Bezos adds 'puppy savior' to his resumé
Talking to a human when you need to contact Amazon seems close to impossible. Apparently, all you need to do to get a hold of Jeff Bezos though is have your puppy stolen by a delivery driver and guess the CEO's email address, according to CNBC. After UK resident Richard Guttfield's black miniature schnauzer was nicked following a dog food delivery, Amazon tracked the driver, an independent contractor, and found the dog at the thief's home.
Twitter relaxes the rules for customer service DMs
Twitter's bot crackdown is great for improving the quality of the service, but might make it harder for businesses to use it effectively. That's why the company is tweaking its system to enable companies to better deal with bulk communications. In the future, you shouldn't be waiting as long for a response from your favorite airline / cable provider, unless of course they're just ignoring you.
WhatsApp builds a customer service app for businesses
WhatsApp's push to get more businesses to use its platform, so it can finally rake in cash from its 1.3 billion users, now includes a full-fledged business app. It's appropriately dubbed WhatsApp Business and is available on Android in select markets including the US, UK, Indonesia, Italy, and Mexico, ahead of a worldwide rollout.
WhatsApp now deals in customer support for businesses
A year after outlining its plans to give the platform customer service functionality, WhatsApp has revealed how businesses will be able to communicate with users via verified accounts. A green check badge -- not dissimilar to the ones found on Facebook and Twitter -- next to a contact name means the phone number belongs to a business account. You'll also know when you start talking to a business through the app, as messages will appear in yellow. The feature is currently in beta for a small number of businesses participating in a pilot program.
Verizon partner exposes 14 million customer records
If you've had to call Verizon customer service recently, you might want to keep a close eye on your data. ZDNet has learned that an employee at a carrier partner, Nice Systems, exposed 14 million residential customer records from the past 6 months on an unguarded Amazon S3 server. As long as you could guess the web address (which reportedly wasn't that hard), you had free rein to download whichever log files you wanted. Each record included a name, cellphone number and account PIN, and only some of it was masked. Thieves would not only have personal info they could abuse elsewhere (such as social accounts that use a phone number for authentication) -- they could impersonate you if they called Verizon later.
Twitter DM buttons let brands help (or sell to) users
If you open a Messaging window with Focus Features' account on Twitter, you'll get greeted by a menu with a few choices to pick from. Those are the platform's new Direct Messaging Buttons, which you can click to perform tasks outside the DM window. A company could bundle a button with a coupon it sends you via DM to give you an easy way to tweet it out to your followers. Some could include buttons that take you to their profiles or to their websites in an effort to lure you into following their accounts or trying out their products. Others can program a button to open a chat conversation with another account more suited to answer your questions for a better customer service experience.
Apple offers its iPhone repair tools to third-party shops
You can get your iPhone fixed at third party shops, but it's clear that they play second fiddle to Apple Stores when they don't have access to Cupertino's specialized tools. However, it looks like Apple is leveling the playing field: the company is running a pilot program that hands out its iPhone calibration machine to three authorized service providers. The tool verifies that the 3D Touch and multi-touch in newer iPhones (6s and up) meets Apple's standards after a repair, so you won't have to worry about an imperfect fix. It's relatively fast, too -- the entire verification process takes 15 minutes.
Valve: Steam gets 75,000 complaints a day, so be patient
Steam, sure, everyone loves Steam, but there's something about Valve's overall lack of transparency that just rankles. Independent developers have called the platform a "big black box," and users often talk about the service's glacially slow customer service. Which is why Valve has issued something of a mea culpa, promising to do better at dealing with issues in the future and opening up about the task it faces.
Customer service on Twitter now includes location sharing
Twitter is one way to easily get some customer service. A simple tweet can often get a faster response than finding a customer support number or using email. The social network has a new feature to make support even more personal: Brands can now request and share location data with users via direct messages.
Twitter tests custom profiles for customer service DMs
Twitter has truly fully embraced its role as a customer service platform for businesses around the globe. One of the features it's testing in private beta, for instance, is designed to give companies a way to make direct messages a lot more personal. The feature allows businesses to add custom profiles for their CS reps, which display their names, profile photos and their job titles within the direct messaging window. Twitter says that knowing if a human is replying or not helps people manage their expectations on what kind of responses they'll get.
Ofcom fines EE £2.7 million for overcharging customers
Oh dear. Ofcom has caught another mobile carrier failing in its duty to provide decent customer support. The villain this time is EE, after it overcharged more than 30,000 customers for calling its "150" service line. These subscribers had calling while roaming in the EU -- the problem is they were charged £1.20 per minute, rather than EE's promised 19p per minute rate. That "carelessness" and 'negligence," as Ofcom describes it, led to a combined overcharge of £245,700 between July 2014 and 2015. EE is now being fined £2.7 million for the mess, which needs to be paid in 20 working days. Ofcom will then transfer the money to the UK's Treasury.
Smarter bots are coming to Facebook, Google and Amazon assistants
We keep hearing that robots are going to take our jobs, but a company called MindMeld is giving us an idea how with its "Deep-Domain Conversational AI Platform." It'll allow bots that can essentially replace customer service agents and even baristas by answering complicated voice or text queries over Google Assistant, Amazon Echo, Facebook Messenger and other popular platforms. Uniqlo, for one, will offer a Facebook bot that can answer questions about its products, services and retail locations with more detail than ever.
