Thread by @patio11

One of the fundamental challenges of customer service, particularly as the happy path in automated, is that the probability of someone having a good day *conditional on them being in a conversation with you* is low.

"Their" days get worse as you get better at the business.

This is so non-obvious and conditional probability is so hard for people to reason about that I think this needs an example:

I want you to think about how many transactions you've had involving a payment at a bank. Thousands, right?

Now think about all your calls with banks.

Your call never starts with "Hello, calling to inquire about that transaction I had using my credit card with a diner recently. Everything went perfectly and the sandwich was good. Have a nice day, toodles."

And you're rarely thrilled at the end of the call, either.

This phenomenon has two concrete consequences for business:

1) You're going to be encouraged by substantially everyone to let customers heavily influence your product development but *the customers who talk to you are not necessarily representative.*

2) Hug your CS team.