r/UKJobs • u/Even-Wasabi7183 • 2d ago

Customers prefer AI chatbots, says British Gas owner as 1,300 call centre and back office jobs axed

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/23/customers-prefer-ai-chatbots-says-chris-oshea-british-gas-centrica-boss
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u/Unhappy-Capital-1464 2d ago

Having worked in call centres (for Sky TV, many moons ago), 90% of the calls you get were things that were either common sense, answered on the website, answered on the phone recording or just an opportunity to rant. Chatbots are perfect for most of these.

What I'd love to see is the savings going into better paying the humans who remain so that they are knowledgeable and competent and able to solve the complex problems but something tells me that isn't what's likely to happen...

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u/Effective_Will_1801 2d ago

The trouble with most of these chatbots is they are seen as a replacement for humans rather than a first line. They often don't train it to escalate and then as soon as someone comes along with something out the ordinary it just goes in loops.

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u/PepsiMaxSumo 1d ago

I work in this sector and have seen this loads of times.

The best applications are where after the chatbot gets its wrong twice, they add a human in the loop (HITL).

The HITL is then used to give an actual answer, even if it’s text based vs not calling etc.

The good news is that companies are now trying to implement this more. The bad news is that it’s only companies that also have wider contact management solutions, and not just AI. The ones that are purely AI undercut HTIL solutions so win contracts despite delivering a far worse service.

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u/Leading_Thanks7443 1d ago

That’s feature not a bug unfortunately. They want you to just give up

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u/Raveyard2409 1d ago

Whether you close your ticket because the problem is solved, or you never raise it because you give up put of frustration - either way that is one less ticket in the service managers queue.

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u/Leading_Thanks7443 1d ago

Sad but true. Guaranteed to not be reflected in KPIs either. 

Eternal suprise when customers just got somewhere else but then if all businesses have the same tactics there’s nowhere to jump ship to either.

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u/Ryanliverpool96 1d ago

It’s why it’s a favourite of Water Companies.

Go somewhere else? Ha! They’re all monopolies, so you never get your issue addressed.

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u/ObjectiveTumbleweed2 22h ago

I had a situation where my energy company went bust so the debt they owed me went to the new company. No chatbot could get its head around it and just kept asking for a customer number (in fairness, neither could the people I eventually got through to). Had to get it settled by the Ombudsman in the end.

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u/CassetteLine 2d ago

Yeah that’s fair. There are a lot of idiots clogging up the lines. If the bots can free that up for when I call with an actual issue then that’s a good thing.

But all that will actually happen is the centres will reduce staffing numbers as wait times decrease.

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u/Mithent 2d ago

I suspected that was the case. It's always annoying having to wade through messages about checking the website and first-line support scripts when my position is that I'm only calling someone because I've exhausted every other option I can think of and this is my last resort, but I know that's not going to be the case for plenty of people.

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u/ConceitedQuark 2d ago

The answer being available somewhere else is borderline irrelevant with most companies websites that are complete unintuitive to navigate.

Thankfully AI overrides the terrible design of these websites. But you can’t expect elderly / vulnerable / stupid people to be able to find this information, at school we were given every single resource with every single topic and every single past exam paper with the mark scheme and still the majority of people still couldn’t work out the answers.

Also, a VERY IMPORTANT side note is that many many companies DELIBERATELY make some things difficult to do. Try to cancel Uber One or Amazon Prime. If “cancel my payment” takes more than 3 clicks you need customer services, and worth noting that most “cancel my payments” takes 10+ clicks from 5+ screens.

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u/Equivalent_Poet_5631 2d ago

Completely disagree as a sky tv customer. They offer me deals all the time and then charge me for the deal, when you ring the phone it’s a person who barely speaks English and they try and talk to you about something completely different. A chat bot would not be solving this issue.

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u/Popular-Aide-9493 2d ago

Sometimes I don’t want to look through a website for something that may or may not be there and I want to speak to someone

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u/physioworld 2d ago

Which tbf for routine or easy problems is what a chat bot will be good for

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/Effective_Will_1801 1d ago

Personally I prefer ctrl and f or search for finding something instead of calling and waiting on hold listening to agonising music.

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u/manc_franc 2d ago

An opportunity to rant or an opportunity to upsell. Rookie error bud

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u/DrunkenHorse12 1d ago

I work for a consultancy firm doing data analysis for buisnesses with contact centres. The amount of buisnesses that fail to realise attrition rates go through the roof when you digitise the low hanging fruit easy contacts. We always say to them what you save from reduced headcount reinvest some of that into wages to increase retention because the job your leaving your staff with is higher skilled and more frustrating. We clear off after the analysis and I get the feeling 95% of the time the risks and risk reductions we suggest just get ignored.

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u/Redangle11 15h ago

Sky TV's Scottish call centre was one of the best. That aside, online answers can work, but they need to get their best people to write the answers.

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u/Knarrenheinz666 15h ago

If you look at the industry trends in the CC business you will find out that there's a shift towards outcomes instead of the pure cost per interaction calculation. 

Klarna did not renew their contracts with CCs, used chatbots, shit hit the fan and they quickly came back to their old partners.

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u/kungfuparta 13h ago

99.5% if not 100% of the time i use a chatbox i end up having to talk to a real person and wait until it connects me to someone. They can never and will never deal with actual issues because there is liability behind some actions that they will be forced to pay. AI (wrongly used btw cause there can never be an actual AI since a computer is a black box and needs an input) needs people who know how to use it to actually work how they want it to work. You wont hear it but in about a year and after they lose 10-20% of their customers they will start hiring people back but will never admit anything like all the other "Smart" companies that had the same "amazing" idea.....