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customers prefer being able to reach a human in five minutes or less - which is obvious all utilities don't want to do. So they give us a robo voice that can screw everything up and make it sound like your fault.

Same company that introduced ‘fire and rehire’ so that when they do sack all those people they will get buttons in compensation. I used to work for them and was made redundant. They ‘restructure’ every six months it feels like while making billions in profits.

We surveyed 100 chat bots who told us.....

My opening gambit is always "Speak to an agent" and if that doesn't work, "message the team". Usually gets me through to an actual person (who then follows a script anyway so only marginally better than a Bot!)

AI chatbots are the absolute worst scourge on customer service. I don’t care if some companies use them, because I can elect not to use those companies. Utilities that I absolutely have no choice about should not be allowed to.

Liar.

No one I know prefers AI chatbots. In fact most loathe them!

Pretty sure that most customers would prefer to eat their own vomit than pay British Gas.

I don’t & don’t know anybody who does. Methinks he’s being dishonest to justify the lay offs.

Bullshit

Lol Doubtful

no, we don't

Chris O’Shea is a fucking cunt then.

AI told him that.

I'm sure AI could make strategic decisions for profit over people Mr OShea. And for far few pounds than your renumeration.

Said no one EVER!!!

No, we really don’t. Twat.

I prefer writing to calling, but I prefer humans to bots. Unfortunately if I use a text method, chances are I'll get a bot. I abandoned my previous energy drink company over using AI for customer service.

I just had to make multiple calls to electric company, phone company, insurance companies, when taking over my Dad's finances. Every single freaking time I had to somehow get through to a human to address my actual issue.

Bullshit

I very much don’t believe them

Exactly

Well I was on their website today trying to update my mother-in-law’s email address on her account. And their website is sh*t. The only way to register a new email address is by live chat! What? I mean, WTF?

They do not. Everyone tries to bypass the chatbots.

If you say “ffs” they put you straight through to a human. Guess that won’t work any more though.

Generally if youre trying to reach someone its because your issue cannot be dealt with by an automated system.

Really??? This is just money saving. Chat bots are often useless.

We do not prefer AI.

Ah, how fondly I remember the time a domestic violence charity put me on their chatbot and it said cheerfully, "That isn't real abuse. Can you get off the chat so victims of real abuse can get through?"

I certainly prefer live chat to a phone call. This always involved trying to get past the useless AI chatbot and to human as quickly as possible. But at least I’m not on hold for 2 hours.

Horseshit. Put a human on the end of the phone you bastards!

I can't be the only person who repeatedly writes "speak to human" on those things until it either works or I give up

...that either British Gas misunderstood some research which showed a preference for live chat over phone calls (and bunched that into 'AI chat'), or they've made up some stats to justify sacking lots of people.

I can't believe a millionaire CEO would lie 🙁

Sorry. Don’t believe a word of that. Do they think we zip up the back of our heads?

No they don’t; that’s a lie.

Use is not preference, especially when they control the interface. Please challenge them on this.

No they don't

Wow that's a convenient conclusion

No. Seriously. NO

Hah "get fucked" sincerely customers

No, the Chief Executive!

Sounds 100% made up to allow cutbacks.

I wish I was a British Gas customer, so that I could leave.

The exact of opposite of reality. Fk these parasites.

British Gas boss justifies his indefensible decision using outright lies!!

Not really! If I call it’s because everything else in line including chats can’t help.

Lies, what a wanker

It is almost as if The Guardian has a partnership with a major AI corporation... bsky.app/profile/snig...

I would think what you have here is the CEO of British Gas reporting the skewed results of a survey stacked with loaded questions to hide an anti social and profit driven decision to sack undervalued and poorly rewarded workers.

Humans: "We do not"

That is total bullshit. Just an excuse for them to lay people off. Working for a large telecom company all I ever hear is we want to talk to a human.....

Fuck no we don't. We want to talk to humans who can fix the thing we are calling about.

No, they don't.

There is absolutely no way on earth this is actually true.

Bollocks!

He’s a fucking liar.

my first words to an ai agent: 'Connect me to a real person'

I don’t know anybody who prefers AI chatbots. Not one person.

I think, as @theguardian.com loves AI so much and thinks it's the future, they should sack everyone who writes for them and become a 100% AI publication Assuming, of course, this hasn't already happened and we just didn't notice

I bet the first line is “speak to an agent”

An energy supplier in the UK.

Did they ask actual people? Because hell is populated with chat bots that can't help anyone

Are these customers in the room with us?

If that’s so, I suspect it has much to do with the poor quality of the humans concerned. Not very bright, poorly trained, robotic answers, missing the point etc.

I will never use British Gas again. Thier customer service went from the best to the absolute worst in about a decade.

No they don’t.

Over the past year I have changed financial issues & broadband supply to provision which provides 'customer service.' That is, I can phone someone I know, meet face to face at a local venue, & avoid increasing scams which will accelerate as AI is rolled out. We're people, not units in a system!

Ai kisses my ass

What nonsense! Disgraceful and cowardly that they are putting the blame for job losses on their customers instead of taking it themselves

I informed BG in March of my father's death and opened an account in my name. BG accepts it incorrectly logged payments missed when my father's bank froze his account to my history, trashing my credit rating. BG still hasn’t corrected this, so I’m unable to refinance a mortgage on the house.

I'm going to cry BS at this. I work for an organisation that operates a web chat platform and the reason people use it is because it is manned by humans, no AI triage or Chatbot and when you tell them the response is normally "thank goodness, the AI ones are terrible"

I had to ring 3 separate banks with a simple request. Connected to real person straightaway at the Co-op bank, everything fixed in less than 5 minutes. With the other 2, I spent 30 minutes and 50 minutes respectively going round in circles with chat bots. Don’t think my experience was unique.

What a crock.

Increasing their already fat profits by transferring the costs to the suckers. Instead of ~10 min to solve the problem with a flexible human, now the peasants will have to waste like one hour and many calls trying to make a retardbot understand what they want. And the politicians will do??

I recently recovered a year's worth of payments by talking to a real person - no way to do it by chatbot : can only increase payments

No they don’t! Nobody’s been asked. Lies

Brilliant

Bollocks.

Do the share holders not know they could also replace the "bosses" with ai? That would be very efficient probably

I genuinely thought it was funny. Lmao.

Dump British gas. Simple. They don't want money from real people. As real people aren't their customer aim clearly.

Bollocks!

...which flies against other evidence that call centers are rehiring humans because AI frustrates people too often. www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/ma...

😂

I prefer text chat to endless waiting for my phone call to go through. But I want to text chat with a human, not Clippy.

Based on personal experience of dealing with their call centre, bring it on. The humans there are fucking useless.

He never asked me. And no - I prefer talking to a human being.

Nope, customers prefer real people that know what they're talking about, that means UK based call centres. Chatbots are fine to direct people where to go. Clue is in the statement, the focus is on the (profit) margin. Repellent people, repellent company gouging the last of the fossil fuel profits.

How many customers were surveyed.

Hey @britishgas-support.bsky.social I will never consider using you for anything again. Utterly despicable. If I've got a problem I want to speak to a real human, not a fake one.

In yesterday's letters column Charles MacKinnon is absolutely right. Users don't "prefer" chatbots, they are forced to use them by the methods shown in the letter. Centrica misuse "prefer" when the truth is more customers use the chatbot. Volume does not imply preferment.

And... If one is brave enough to try and speak with a human what are the odds that first you need to navigate a multilayered quiz on why you have this temerity followed by "Due to high levels of calls all our staff are busy at the moment..." Thank goodness I no longer use British Gas.

I don't believe that for a moment. I have found them utterly useless.

parents told me they were trying to call their credit card to just change a really simple thing and the AI person got caught in a loop of asking the same exact questions over and over, and they were getting furious

customers prefer a human picking up the phone and saying something like "hello, British Gas, how can I help you?" when do i get my £600,000 bonus? cunts.

lol bullshit

What a lie 😡

(Ref. Doctorow) enshittification continues apace; shitebots will replace call centre employees to improve profit margins while increasing pollution, carbon emissions, unsustainable energy and water requirements www.theguardian.com/business/202...

He has clearly never used a British Gas chatbot then because they are absolutely useless. The only way to get what you want is to swear at them & then they will pass you on to a human. So glad I dumped British Gas as my supplier.

Another reason not to use British Gas.

I love explaining things to a chatbot which can’t help me, then having to explain it again to an actual person. My time is worthless I guess, according to these ghouls.

"Are these 'customers' in the room with us now, Mr. O'Shea?"

Bollocks.

Customers like having their problems solved.

😂😭🤬

Absolutely not

Lol

Bollocks!!! British Gas have an appalling customer service and some overpaid failed-upwards lame-brained twat hopes to convince the long suffering customers that bots are a better solution than investing in training humans!