In a long post on X, Swapnil Srivastav, founder of Kidbea shared an incident that took place at the Gorakhpur airport. Swapnil, who was traveling with his sister last Sunday, revealed that her boarding pass had a spelling error – “just the last letter of her name”.
He said security stopped her and sent them to the counter. “He said call Akasa support,” he wrote.
And he added: “We called. The AI agent picks up. We said PNR about 5-6 times. The AI couldn’t recognize it. Not once. We’re standing at the airport, stressed, the flight is approaching and this robot just doesn’t get it.”
He shared that they gave, came back and yelled at the staff. “They fixed it manually in 30-40 minutes. And I just stood there thinking. Bro, who thought deploying an AI customer support agent was a good idea? The person calling support is already having a bad day. They’re not calling to chat. They’re calling because something went wrong. That’s the worst time to make them repeat their PNR to a bot 6 times.”
He concluded his post by saying, “Some problems just need a human on the other side. AI is powerful. But knowing where not to use it is the real skill. Founders take note.”
Since its publication, the tweet has garnered over 543,900 views and numerous comments.
Echoing Swapnil’s sentiments, one user wrote, “Customer care executives need to be human only, AI is not solving the problem, it is actually irritating the customer.
Another user commented: “Still thanks for your patience, I hope your problem will be solved even without understanding or the worst is to give two options when neither of them would be suitable for your situation. You can repeat the same 6 steps 6 times, you still won’t get any leader to solve the problem!!!!”
“Using AI agents for customer support is one of the most misguided ideas, especially in urgent/panic situations. However, automating certain basic information can be efficient and beneficial,” wrote a third user on X.
Meanwhile, Akasa Air also responded to the post, “Hello Mr. Srivastava, We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to your sister and this is not the experience we want to give our passengers. To help us check and resolve this further, could you please DM us your 6-digit alphanumeric reservation number along with your contact number.”
(This report is based on user-generated content from social media. Livemint has not independently verified and does not endorse these claims.)
