It’s becoming impossible to escape interacting with customer service chatbots. They are rarely much good at solving more than the most basic queries, but at least they prove one important truth, writes Herald columnist Rebecca McQuillan

So something’s gone wrong with your online purchase. The usual questions run through your mind. Do I still have the confirmation email? What was in the small print? And: is a purchase worth £8.99 really enough to make me engage with Minnie the customer service chatbot?

Minnie is “here to help”, but Minnie is useless. Minnie can only answer questions that you can already answer for yourself by looking on the company’s website. You are only engaging with Minnie because you have no choice: the company has made sure of that. It has withdrawn all phone numbers from its website and is now rumoured to be operating from a bunker 100ft beneath Swindon accessible only through the kitchen of a kebab shop. You long for the days of being stuck in a phone queue because at least then there was the possibility of speaking to a human; now you are being stonewalled by binary code.

You type: “I’d like a refund, please. The postage label generated by your website didn’t work so the parcel couldn’t be sent.”

Read more Rebecca McQuillan

Minnie: “Hi there, good news! Our records show that your parcel is in transit. I’m confident it will arrive soon! We allow 28 working days for parcels to be delivered. If after that time it still hasn’t arrived, please let us know. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”........

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