Last November I found myself phoning in to BCC's Council Tax phone line to sort out some council tax issues. As usual after the first dial tone ring, you get the typical "select your option" voice messaging to get directed to the appropriate customer service agent or whatever other self-service option exists to resolve relevant issues.
Last week I found myself phoning the Council Tax phone line again, only to be met by an AI call centre chatbot telling me to describe what issues I needed resolving in the relevant words.
My issue was specific and did not fit neatly into any one of the options I could think of, so without thinking I simply said "Talk To Customer Service", believing that the AI chatbot would forward my call on accordingly.
Imagine my shock when I heard the AI chatbot not only claim that it did not understand my answer, but even outright state that "Saying the words 'talk to customer service' will NOT let your call be redirected and your call may be hung up as a result." In disbelief, I hung up and redid the entire call sequence again the exact same way twice, only to be met with the same outcome each time of a robot flatly telling me that asking to speak to customer service won't actually get me linked up with customer service.
EXCUSE ME BCC, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS NONSENSE? Is this BCC's bright idea to resolve the problem of it being broke and bankrupt and thus unable to... oh I don't know... HIRE MORE HUMAN CUSTOMER SERVICE AGENTS TO MAN THE PHONES?
I knew BCC had problems manning their phone lines for a while now when for quite a few months in the past I'd ring up their customer service hotlines during normal office hours only to be told that no agents are available or that call services are temporarily suspended.
But to so deliberately adopt AI to further stymie and frustrate one of the last remaining links between human residents (and voters too may I add) and human local governance/TAX COLLECTION to sort things out with five minutes discussing the issue instead of being told to either do everything online if one's issue could be self-serviced, or left with no answers and no human customer service to contact if one's issue was too specific or unique in nature is a profoundly contemptuous and dare I say, anti-democratic gesture falling far short of already-low societal standards and expectations in the UK today.
In the end, turns out the only way you can actually speak to somebody human to resolve any issues is to phone the Complaints line, follow the selection options to your relevant area your problem is categorised, and either be lucky enough to wait in a virtual queue short enough to connect you with a human customer service officer within 15 minutes, or request for a callback if your waiting time is longer than 15 minutes.
What a ridiculous state of affairs at BCC, first with their botched Oracle IT system overhaul resulting in an entire year's taxation revenue and expenditure for the city council budget to basically be impossible to calculate correctly (because the glitch was such that BCC didn't even know WHO paid their taxes or didn't do so amongst other things), and now this new AI customer service chatbot that explicitly tells you in peak British politeness to go pound sand for all it cares if you wish to speak to a human customer service agent.
If anyone else here has any similar horror or dystopian experiences dealing with contacting BCC, please feel free to share them.
