Hacker News with Generative AI: Customer Service

After Firing 700 Humans for AI, Klarna Now Wants Them Back (yahoo.com)
Klarna is backpedaling after cutting hundreds of human jobs and replacing them with artificial intelligence. The Swedish buy-now-pay-later company now says real people are essential to customer service and plans to bring them back—but in a gig-style setup.
Artificial Intelligence, Layoffs, Gig Economy, Customer Service
7 points by myaccountonhn 3 days ago | 2 comments
Update on an incident that happened with our Grok response bot on X yesterday (twitter.com)
Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.
Social Media, AI, Customer Service
48 points by sxp 8 days ago | 22 comments
Klarna changes its AI tune and again recruits humans for customer service (customerexperiencedive.com)
A year after claiming that its AI chatbot could do the work of 700 representatives, Klarna is turning back to people to handle more of its customer service work.
Artificial Intelligence, Customer Service, Business, Technology
257 points by elsewhen 12 days ago | 125 comments
Klarna plans to hire humans again (fortune.com)
After leaning hard on AI for customer service, fintech Klarna says it's hiring more humans.
Customer Service, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech, Hiring
9 points by mooreds 13 days ago | 1 comments
Klarna flips from AI to hiring people, survey reveals most AI fail to deliver (fortune.com)
After leaning hard on AI for customer service, fintech Klarna says it's hiring more humans.
Artificial Intelligence, Customer Service, Fintech, Hiring, Survey
16 points by riffraff 14 days ago | 2 comments
Ask HN: Did Aliexpress stop shipping to US? (ycombinator.com)
I was going to buy a component on Aliexpress and noticed this at checkout: "Item not deliverable to the selected country/region." Did anyone else notice this? Is this because the seller doesn't want to deal with possible customs clearance issues? I have previously bought from this seller without this issue in the past.
E-commerce, Shipping, Aliexpress, United States, Customer Service
27 points by olalonde 18 days ago | 17 comments
When flat rate movers won't answer your calls (aphyr.com)
Back in 2023 I went through an inter-state move with Flat Rate Movers, LTD. (US DOT 488466, MC 254356). They bungled the job, damaged my stuff and my house, and then refused to talk to me or their own insurance company. I placed dozens of calls, wrote letters, emails, nothing worked. I finally got some money for the damage by working with their insurer directly.
Moving, Customer Service, Consumer Issues
393 points by kevincox 20 days ago | 311 comments
Anyone Else Sick of Stripe? (ycombinator.com)
Just got kicked off a few weeks ago. Something about having two transactions for the same account and same amount. WTF! They said it was fraud. How can they just do that? There has got to be better solutions for me.
Payment Processing, Stripe, Customer Service, Fraud Prevention
11 points by sukiakiman 21 days ago | 7 comments
Company apologizes after AI support agent invents policy that causes user uproar (arstechnica.com)
On Monday, a developer using the popular AI-powered code editor Cursor noticed something strange: Switching between machines instantly logged them out, breaking a common workflow for programmers who use multiple devices.
Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Customer Service, Privacy
8 points by isaacfrond 35 days ago | 1 comments
Tried to Cancel Adobe. Got Ghosted. Now I Owe $500 (ycombinator.com)
Adobe raised my subscription mid contract by almost $30/month, then told me it’d cost $500 to cancel.
Consumer Issues, Adobe, Subscription Services, Customer Service
25 points by lovegrenoble 43 days ago | 7 comments
Hostinger Account Suspension and Data Loss Cost Us $200k (ycombinator.com)
We want to warn everyone about our horrible experience with Hostinger, a so-called "managed hosting" service that completely failed to protect our server, falsely accused us of phishing, suspended our account without proof, and refused to provide any data backup, leading to a massive financial loss of over $200,000.
Web Hosting, Security, Data Loss, Business, Customer Service
12 points by bhushank04 56 days ago | 17 comments
Noise cancellation improves turn-taking for AI Voice Agents (krisp.ai)
AI Voice Agents are rapidly evolving, powering critical use-cases such as customer support automation, virtual assistants, gaming, and remote collaboration platforms. For these voice-driven interactions to feel natural and practical, the underlying audio pipeline must be resilient to noise, responsive, and accurate—especially in real-time scenarios.
AI, Voice Recognition, Customer Service, Technology
113 points by davitb 60 days ago | 45 comments
After borking my Pixel 4a battery, Google borks me, too (arstechnica.com)
It is an immutable law of nature that when you receive a corporate email with a subject line like "Changes coming to your Pixel 4a," the changes won't be the sort you like. Indeed, a more honest subject line would usually be: "You're about to get hosed."
Consumer Electronics, Google, Customer Service, User Experience
23 points by MBCook 60 days ago | 7 comments
Customer is accused of spamming for repeatedly replying STOP to political texts (phonearena.com)
A Visible customer was recently the victim of what seems to be a misunderstanding of the company's automated spam detection system.
Customer Service, Technology, Politics, Spam
6 points by josephcsible 67 days ago | 0 comments
Amazon Keeps Finding New Ways to Anger Kindle Customers (the-ebook-reader.com)
From forced software updates that keep breaking things to suddenly removing the ability to download purchased ebooks, Amazon has done a number of things to annoy and irritate Kindle users in recent years.
Amazon, Kindle, E-Readers, Customer Service, Consumer Issues
9 points by DavideNL 87 days ago | 3 comments
HP realizes that mandatory 15-minute support call wait times isn't good support (arstechnica.com)
In an odd approach to trying to improve customer tech support, HP allegedly implemented mandatory, 15-minute wait times for people calling the vendor for help with their computers and printers in certain geographies.
Customer Service, Technology, HP, Business
19 points by rtkwe 91 days ago | 2 comments
HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback' (theregister.com)
HP today abruptly ditched the mandatory 15-minute wait time that it imposed on customers dialling up its telephone-based support team due to "initial feedback."
Customer Service, Technology, HP
97 points by rntn 91 days ago | 106 comments
HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls (theregister.com)
HP is trying to force consumer PC and print customers to use digital support channels by setting a minimum 15-minute wait time for anyone that phones the call center to get answers to troublesome queries.
Customer Service, Business Practices, Technology, HP
55 points by bikenaga 92 days ago | 26 comments
r/Duolingo Will No Longer Be Duolingo’s Unpaid Customer Support or Data Mine (reddit.com)
It brings me no joy to make this decision, but it has become necessary. For too long, Duolingo has treated this subreddit as free labor—data mining our discussions, using us as an unpaid customer support desk, and ignoring real user concerns. That ends today.
Social Media, Customer Service, Data Privacy, Online Learning
61 points by Lammy 113 days ago | 26 comments
Digitalocean banning accounts before you even choose a product (ycombinator.com)
Digitalocean banning accounts before you even choose a product
Digitalocean, Cloud Hosting, Customer Service, Security, Business
9 points by bg0 115 days ago | 8 comments
Why Your AI Product Team Needs an AI Quality Lead (freeplay.ai)
In a recent episode of the Deployed podcast, Freeplay customer Help Scout shared how they've transformed their customer service platform into an AI-native product company.
AI, Quality Assurance, Product Management, Customer Service
12 points by mooreds 118 days ago | 4 comments
How Can a Major Bank Like Capital One Be Offline for 24 Hours? (nbcnews.com)
Capital One said an unspecified technical issue was hampering customer account access Thursday, as some users reported issues with direct deposits.
Banking, Technology, Outage, Customer Service
18 points by wierdstuff 127 days ago | 15 comments
Ask HN: How can X suspend paid accounts without explanation? (ycombinator.com)
Recently X suspended my account without any reason (no spam, offensive content, etc) and after charging me for the entire year upfront.
Social Media, Customer Service, Payment Issues, Account Suspensions
10 points by santa_boy 127 days ago | 12 comments
Sonos CEO Leaving After Botched App Revamp Led to Customer Revolt (bloomberg.com)
Sonos Inc. Chief Executive Officer Patrick Spence is leaving after eight years in the job, a move that follows a botched app revamp that upset customers and stymied growth.
Business, Technology, Leadership, Consumer Products, Customer Service
6 points by pyrophoenix 130 days ago | 3 comments
Stop Trying to Schedule a Call with Me (matduggan.com)
One of the biggest hurdles for me when trying out a new service or product is the inevitable harassment that follows.
Productivity, Customer Service, Opinion
588 points by birdculture 132 days ago | 198 comments
FTC Orders H&R Block to Pay $7M and Overhaul Advertising and Customer Service (ftc.gov)
FTC, Lawsuits, Advertising, Consumer Protection, Customer Service
4 points by impish9208 134 days ago | 0 comments
Iwantmydomain.com randomly refunded all of my domains and locked me out (ycombinator.com)
This is a heads up to stay away from this shady company. Yesterday evening I saw a bunch of refund emails come through for every domain I hold with them. I tried to login to my account to see what was going on and I was locked out!
Domain Registrars, Customer Service, Security, Online Services
45 points by mdatelle 147 days ago | 17 comments
Google ads appeal process is broken? (ycombinator.com)
Hi there HN. I'm posting this in case anybody who has a Google contact or works at Google themselves would be able to help.
Google Ads, Advertising, Customer Service, Business
21 points by growthwtf 165 days ago | 0 comments
Hospitality in Customer Service: Lessons from Japanese Omotenashi (cba-gbl.com)
What makes a customer feel genuinely cared for?
Customer Service, Hospitality, Japan, Culture, Business
5 points by athousandsteps 165 days ago | 0 comments
AI is making Philippine call center work more efficient, for better and worse (restofworld.org)
“Thank you for calling. … You’re speaking with Renzo. This call may be recorded for — uhm — this call may be re—” Renzo Bahala, a customer service agent for a U.S. credit card company, breaks his monologue. If he were at work, he would’ve earned a demerit.
Artificial Intelligence, Philippines, Customer Service, Labor
4 points by pitt1980 169 days ago | 0 comments