Reading the post and comments on Softbank plans to cancel out angry customer voices using AI made me think it could be an interesting topic to chat about.
I think the best support I received was in the chat application and service Slack. A competent, friendly human responds. I had two or three support inquiries with them.
The last issue I had in Slack was when I opened via try icon click my clipboard content was being pasted. I was surprised they were able to identify the issue which was due to a third-party application that had only just released with the issue a day earlier. Slack support was responsive with a first message before the solution, and fast to respond with the second message with the identified cause.
I’m not sure any stand out as particularly awful for me. [Kinda] Bad seems to be the norm. Sometimes bots sit in front of being able to write a message (my bank, I have to write the same inquiry a second time), sometimes the first response is automated or templated, sometimes the first response is automated and immediately but a human will follow up, sometimes you call and can hardly understand them because of accent or even awful intonation. Often you receive incompetent answers that don’t respond to your message or issue. Sometimes they’re unwilling or incapable of resolution or agreeable conclusions.
Back in the Windows 8 era, I bought a little 8" tablet PC from Dell. It was flaky from basically day 1, and after ~2 weeks it bricked entirely.
I go to RMA and they ask “If we refund you $50, would you be willing to keep the unit? How about $75?”
Admittedly, they did give me a refund, but that was so the wrong branch to follow on the chat script, honey. If I’m going to be out over three hundred dollars for a paperweight it better at least be made of something cool like meteorite.