Citizens Advice urges UK service providers to stop relying on AI chatbots

Stop relying on AI chatbots for customer care and guarantee the “right to talk to a human”, Citizens Advice has urged essential service providers, as research found they wasted time, caused stress and delayed problem solving for more than half of users.

The spread of the AI-powered systems to provide help about the provision of vital services such as energy, banking, phones and internet, is making it harder for millions of already digitally excluded people to handle snags, according to the frontline charity that last year provided more than 2.7 million people with one-on-one help in England and Wales.

The charity concluded that chatbots caused harm, saying too often they trapped humans in an “endless loop” in which nothing got resolved, and almost half of people who had to use a chatbot found them unhelpful, with some concluding the chatbot seemed rigged to “make me give up”.

It called for service providers to respect a new right for customers to speak to a human after it investigated the wider impact of digital exclusion, estimated to affect at least 14 million UK citizens. It uncovered slower and less reliable support for people who struggle with or have limited access to online systems and found the erosion of phone, face-to-face and paper communication had created a two-tier support system.

“Going round in circles with a chatbot isn’t just annoying, it can be a blockade to essential services,” said Tom MacInnes, policy director at Citizens Advice. “We’ve seen organisations’ overreliance on chatbots and online forms leaving people unable to fix billing problems, sort out their debt or even access homelessness prevention services. There’s a role for chatbots, but the quiet erosion of face-to-face and telephone services is letting too many people fall through the cracks.”

That erosion of traditional ways of communicating means that people without good digital access can face serious difficulties getting simple problems fixed. For example, the charity found that submitting energy meter readings to correct a wrong bill can take less than an hour online if systems are working properly. Without good digital access it takes as long as six weeks offline, putting people “at risk of further harm”. In some locations applying for low-cost social tariff broadband – itself intended to reduce digital exclusion – is being made harder by being digital only, Citizens Advice found after it took evidence from its frontline advisers and hundreds of case summaries.

One adviser reported that when people struggled with digital-only applications for homelessness support they ended up “homeless for longer … they’re in danger … they’re losing money … they get into debt” and said: “It can ruin a lot of people’s lives.”

The warnings come amid growing frustration with the proliferation of AI customer services. Online message boards with titles like: “I’m so sick of AI Customer ‘Support” Chat Bots” and “Has anyone ever actually had their problem solved by a company’s chatbot?” are filled with tales of woe. Several chronicle frustrated customers’ attempts to circumvent phone-based chatbots by repeatedly yelling “human!”.

Only 20% of UK adults polled on behalf of Citizens Advice in July said chatbots were their preferred way to communicate, with phone calls, email and instant messaging all preferred.

Gripes about other forms of digital exclusion include multifactor authentication, which requires rapid and dextrous manipulation of more than one device just to log in and time-limits to complete transactions.

Of the people who found it difficult or not possible to talk to a human to resolve an issue with their essential services, 49% felt stress or frustration, 27% felt powerless, 44% experienced delays to resolution and 14% gave up trying to resolve the issue altogether.

The UK government has previously said it is investing £11.9m in a digital inclusion innovation fund, supporting local projects to help people get online. About 1.7m households in the UK do not have a laptop, tablet or desktop computer.

A government spokesperson said: “Businesses have a legal obligation to provide contact information in a manner which is clear and easily accessible.”