Agreed that phone trees are awful, but the exact same logic done in a chat form is surprisingly sane. We can easily skim past the bullshit with our eyes, and hone in on what we need quite quickly. In many cases I prefer it to the triage by humans, with their bad microphones and unfamiliar accents.
It doesn't even need to be sophisticated logic, with heavy use of AI and conversational styles of communication. A simple "what are you looking for?" with some preset options is pretty great.
I keep seeing praise for chatbots, but every single one I've interacted with has been exactly as useless as an IVR. Do you have an example of a useful chatbot?
Chatbots are only good when staffed with a competent backing crew, and only offered to the user when those agents are online. But most companies invest the minimum in the chatbot experience so it blows.
It doesn't even need to be sophisticated logic, with heavy use of AI and conversational styles of communication. A simple "what are you looking for?" with some preset options is pretty great.