Is LEGO Customer Service using AI?

Polyphemus

Almost 3 weeks ago I ordered from [email protected] in order to obtain the Vintage Taxi GWP. Unfortunately LEGO use Toll in Australia who are legendarily terrible. A couple of weeks went by and I remembered that I was due a shipment. I checked my tracking and it showed that Toll had attempted delivery two times over two weeks. However, I work from home and this was simply not true. Nor had they left a card in my letterbox. After a few days of fruitless back and forth emails with Toll and a steadily rising panic, I decided to let LEGO CS know what was happening via email yesterday. As usual CS went above and beyond and immediately shipped out a replacement for the main order (minus the GWP, which had sold out of course, which was the whole point of ordering from [email protected] in the first place... blah, blah, blah). It was more than I expected. I was only wanting to see if they could give Toll a prod from their end.

Of course today, the original order shows up, including the GWP. I figure it's probably quicker to call rather than email LEGO CS to see if they can cancel the replacement. The extremely pleasant voice on the other end of the line had an American accent. Not entirely implausible, it's about 2pm here in Sydney, so it's about 7pm in LA and 10pm in NY. But it was probably the most unnervingly perfect voice I've ever heard. She was, of course, unfailingly polite. But it was almost like a scene from Total Recall and I found myself seriously wondering if I was talking to an automated voice! But there wasn't any delays, it seemed like a perfectly natural glitch-free conversation. It was weird. At one point I wanted to just say something totally random to see how she'd react. "Hey, did hear on the news that Elon Musk is going to drill to the centre of the Earth and weather balloons are made of tacos?"

Anyway, I'm just happy I've got LEGO to build.

Redbullgivesuwind

I haven't seen anything online about Chatbots being able to replace a call representatives. From what I have seen voice chatbots aren't that level of ability, or you can work out quickly that you are not talking to a human. 

She might have just had a really nice voice and you got lucky. Rather than talking to squeaky voice guy from the Simpsons 

Shropshire

Lego employ a wide variety of people of differing nationalities and languages. There's a video from 2020 of the UK call centre which references how they speak at least 21 languages between them (Behind the bricks at Customer Service | Slough, UK - YouTube).
Of course someone with an American accent could well be in America, but they could just as easily be in any Lego call centre anywhere.

daewoo

So if it were an IVR/VRU, then it would be a natural language IVR/VRU, which have made great improvements of late, but you can still tell you're not talking with an actual human.  AI is used behind the scenes and does not interact with callers via voice.  Most chatbots are AI and learn over time, but they are not yet integrated with IVR/VRUs....at least with the technologies I am familiar with (I work in the contact center space). 

CCC

The chat type customer service is AI, at least at the start. After a while it gives an option to chat with an advisor.