Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
WE live in Bot-City. I’m a bot-hater.
Where is the personalised service for customers? There are endless algorithms-driven ads, but is there a human element to the sales pitch as well?
The other day, I wanted to go out with my girlfriends in a pizza place called Grosso Napoletano.
The restaurant’s website said it was open Monday nights, but I couldn’t book a 7-person table a week later. Even though I only wanted to book a table for one person, it wouldn’t let me.
Once again, there were no available tables. Whilst I recognise that I am a pizza-holic and willing to devour Marinaras throughout the Four Seasons, I very much doubted that the cavernous branch of this restaurant chain had already been booked out by Madrileños clamouring for pillowy charred crusts on a wintry Monday night.
The bot chat began when the phone number listed on the website was actually a WhatsApp number. The bot didn’t seem to understand that I was just trying to book a reservation.
Then I deleted the chat. I then called a competitor that had humans, who seductively uttered “Ciao Bella,” as I wrote my name.
Arriving early to my restaurant reservation, I crossed the street and spoke with the staff of the Grosso Napoletano. The manager briefly stopped folding napkins so she could listen to my story. She acknowledged that their bots were having teething issues, but after much convincing, she gave me the direct phone number of the restaurant, which is usually reserved for drivers.
Ironically disobedient chatbots do not seem to have marred the success this winning formula for a restaurant which boasts branches all over Spain, from Murcia to San Sebastian.
It’s not true, as there are currently 50 pizzaoli in addition to a kiosk and food truck. Pizzaoli are from Naples, and they each cook 300 pizzas per day in stone ovens. It only takes 90 seconds to make a pizza, which sounds like ultra-fast food. However, the double-fermented, two-day-old base places their pizzas in the slow-food category.
Since I taught English in Florence when I was in my 20s I have needed a weekly dough fix. I am not monogamous in terms of pizza parlors.
I will happily hop from one pizzaiolo to another in search of that consistently crunchy romana-style base, rather than the inflated-edged Neapolitan variety. Domino’s is the only pizza that my children would eat.
In our family, it’s a joke that I spend hours perusing the menu before ordering a pizza with margherita and rocket on top.
I believe that the quality of an establishment is measured by the waiter’s ability to confirm whether the rocket is a substitute for oregano, and not just a garnish.
No Italian worth his salt would serve both. While I admit that the peppery-rocket topping was my personal invention, I’m a pizza purist; less is more. In every other aspect of my life, especially when it comes to money or chocolate… more is definitely more. The more, the better. On my margherita I prefer top-quality ingredients sprinkled thinly on a crisp base.
Chatbots can be frustrating, but they are used by 1.5 billion people around the world. United States, India Germany United Kingdom and Brazil are the countries that have the most automated bots.
The two biggest benefits of chatbots are that they can provide immediate support (or headaches) and that they do so 24/7. Chatbots will be the main customer service channel in a quarter (or more) of businesses by 2027. (Source: Tidio).
As with all technology, artificial-intelligence-powered virtual assistants, chatbots, customer service, and engagement are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Price Waterhouse Cooper estimates that nearly 30% of customers do not know whether their last customer support chat was conducted by a human agent or chatbot.
We can only hope that authentic pizza will not be reduced in the future to a virtual Gino, singing “Just One Cornetto”, in perfect pitch. As I write this I am chatting on WhatsApp with an alleged Hewlett Packard Chatbot who is fixing my printer.
I asked him to call me after an hour and forty five minutes of repeating all my details and the problems with my printer. He hung up on me because he didn’t like my insulting his digital ability to fix the problem.
I called the callback service and, less than five minutes later, an attractive South American woman asked if she could fix my laptop. She did so in less than five minutes. She explained the procedure to me afterward, while I took down notes. I will be able to do this myself for all other devices in the house. It’s amazing what people can do today.
In the hospital, it seems that nurses are no longer required to care for patients. After a recent procedure, I was connected to a sleeve. It seemed to wait until I was just nodding off before suddenly tightening its iron grip, squeezing the life out of my upper arm and taking my blood pressure at regular intervals throughout the night, whilst the rest of the staff cheered Viva España at a football match on their mobile phones.
It would have been better to send me home with a spy camera so they could monitor me remotely. They didn’t even notice that I was munching on the dark chocolate almonds in my toiletry bag. Even my surgeon was trying to persuade me to be operated on by a robot—presumably so he didn’t have to miss any of the footie either. In years to come, perhaps patients will have 3D glasses put on to play interactive football with Ronaldo and a robotic appendix removal.
