> It speaks in customer service voice. That faux friendly tone people use when they're trying to sell you something.
Mmmmm while I get that, in the context w/ the grandparent comment, having a human wouldn't be better then? It's effectively the same. Because, realistically that's a pretty common voice/tone to get even in tech support.
The problem is you don't like the customer service/sales voice because they "pretend to be your friends".
Let me know if I didn't capture it.
I don't think people "pretend to be my friend" when they answer the phone to help me sort out of airline ticket problem. I do believe they're trained to and work to take on a "friendly" tone. Even if the motive isn't genuine, because it's trained, it's way a nicer of an experience than someone who's angry or even simply monotone. Trying to fix my $1200 plane ticket is stressful enough. Don't need the CSR to make it worse.
Might be cultural, but I would prefer a neutral tone. The friendly tone gives some expectation of good result of the inquiry or of implication, which makes it worse when the problem is not solvable or not in the power of agent to solve - which many times it is - you don't call support for simple problems.
Of course I agree that "angry" is in most cases not appropriate, but still, I can see cases in which it might, for example, if the caller is really aggressive, curses, or blames unreasonably the agent, the agent could become angry. Training people that everybody will answer them "friendly" no matter their behavior does not sound good for me.
Being human doesn't make it worse. Saccharine phonies are corny when things are going well and dispiriting when they're meant to be helping you and fail.
That wasn't even my impression.
My impression was that it reminds me of the humans that I dislike.
It speaks in customer service voice. That faux friendly tone people use when they're trying to sell you something.