Apologies in advance if this is covered under another thread.
It’s not a surprise that TH is moving towards automated customer service along with the rest of the world, but my interactions with the chatbot to date have been effectively useless. Entering in your message into the chat brings up “Frankie”, who despite claiming to operate with natural language processing (“give me a few keywords to tell me what you’d like help with”) manifests responses that are completely nonsensical or unrelated to what is entered. Then, when asking for an agent (during normal business hours) you are informed that nobody is available and to leave a message in the chat with your email and someone will contact you. So, you copy and paste your original message into the chat convo again and…nothing. No ticket number, no timeline info, no idea where your query is going.
I highly valued my past interactions with your support staff, and would ask please that if you can’t get the chatbot right to revert to the old processes until it can be improved.
That’s odd. I’ve used Frankie to reach a human a bunch of times and it’s put me through each time or told me that someone would follow up soon and they have. I didn’t do what you described — copying whatever. I typed something like “I want to talk to a human.” Just kept it simple.
It looks like you’ve heard back from someone now, but it’d be great if you could confirm here, and let us know that you’re happy that everything’s been sorted out.
THS is totally losing the human aspect in every way. I imagine experienced sitters are leaving in droves. I have lots of HOs who have been delighted to receive my application (46 5☆ reviews) due to the poor quality of other applicants who are mainly backpackers looking for a free holiday with no interest in the pets.
I’ve just found the same. I can’t add my dogs’ breeds because they aren’t on the drop-down list. I’ve tried to get them added, but can’t get past the dreaded Frankie, so have given up after the 3rd attempt.
It is increasingly difficult to get logical answers whether messaging Frankie or the (supposedly?) human membership executives who reply to emails sent to support@trustedhousesitters.com
In answer to my email, part of the reply was two paragraphs back to back as follows:
I apologise if this has caused you any inconvenience and would like to assure you that our development team is working hard to get this issue resolved as soon as possible and get your experience on the platform back on track.
I apologise if this has caused you any inconvenience. Our tech team is aware of this issue, but there is no timeframe for when it will be fixed.
I’m trying to guess what it means but tbh it might not be worth pondering…
If Frankie can’t redirect someone to a service team member during specific hours due to staffing or coverage schedules, this should be made clear.
The keyword prompts are completely inaccurate for topics that aren’t explicitly covered in its “Help” indexes. Why would I be chatting with someone if the answer was already available to me elsewhere? (I suppose some people don’t look, but this is an unusually diligent bunch here at TH because the details make the difference for us.)
Frankie doesn’t provide context for how long it will take for a real person to get back to us if no one is available at that time.
Frankie requires us to provide our email even though in the chat even though this information is provided when we initiate the chat. Why doesn’t this information carry over / pass through?
Frankie doesn’t send us an email confirmation that our request has been received when nobody is available and we’re told to (re)enter our email info and the reason for requesting support.
Even though my particular issue in this case was eventually resolved by a lovely real person, the software configuration is poorly done. Perhaps there is a team responsible for this to whom you can provide this feedback to improve it?
Hello @KittyKathy Jenny is currently offline, but I can help you with this one
The Membership Services team are responsible for chatbot Frankie. They will be able to answer your specific questions if you email them to support@trustedhousesitters.com. We can pass the feedback on for you but feel free to share any answers they give you here with us as it’s helpful for the community to know. Thank you.
I agree that a lot of companies are really losing that human element now and I find it quite sad. What also saddens me is that this company seems to be attracting a lesser quality member who is looking to merely use this site for a crash-pad to sightsee and the poor animals end up drawing the short straw.
Haha, sorry if I worded it badly, the point I was trying to make is that owners are getting fed up with applications from people who aren’t really interested in the pets but are just looking for free accommodation.
I would like to suggest that “AI Frankie” is not a useful addition to the Customer Service platform and recommend it be discontinued entirely. An online chat in real time with a THS agent - even if it means a wait time - would be my preference.
CanadaDan
@CanadaDan & @MigeyMeatball Thank you for your feedback, it has been passed onto the Membership Services Team as they own Frankie. Please also ask Frankie to speak to an agent/human and the chat will be passed over to an available team member or an agent will get back to you.
I hope that helps
