I know we’re all supposed to be fretting about robots stealing our livelihoods, right?
Soon enough, machines will replace truck drivers, fast-food staff and accountants, and maybe they’ve got their little mechanical eyes on your position, too.
Bummer.
But for the moment, you might as well let the robot uprising work in your favor.
With that in mind, developers at the San Francisco startup Trim have released a handy new tool. It’s a bot that negotiates with cable TV behemoth Comcast on your behalf.
The bot, a software program built to converse and interact with humans, will bargain with Comcast customer-service agents via online chat to try to reduce your cable bill.
So this bot will do your negotiating for you while you relax and don’t lift a finger. Honestly, this is a wonderful time to be alive.
For me, this complimentary tool is especially appealing because, personally, dealing with customer-service reps ranks among my least favorite tasks. It’s right up there with dental procedures, car trouble and bounced-check notices.
Comcast: Like a Movie Villain, Only Worse
And what better target than Comcast to unleash your bargaining bot on? (Writer adopts Arnold Schwarzenegger cadence: “Comcast, you are terminated.”)
Come on, Comcast is probably America’s most disliked corporation.
With cable and internet customers across 40 states, Comcast is the largest media company globally. Infamous for poor service, it places near the bottom of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index. It’s the only company to have earned Consumerist’s “Worst Company in America” honor twice.
So don’t feel guilty when you send your nifty new haggle-bot after Comcast.
How Trim’s Tool Operates
Comcast customers can reach the company by phone, email or Twitter, and also via online chat.
Trim observed that when Comcast service agents chat online with disgruntled customers, they often adhere to a straightforward, scripted set of questions and replies, said Trim CEO Thomas Smyth. Trim realized it could create a chat bot capable of handling that narrow script.
To use the bot, install Trim’s Chrome browser extension, then follow the onscreen directions.
Driven by machine-learning techniques, the bot will haggle with Comcast agents using a set of prepared arguments and responses.
The objective is to trim your monthly bill — or at minimum secure a one-time account credit.
“My grandmother was overpaying by $35 a month for Comcast, because they had raised her rate a little bit each year for the past decade,” Smyth told Fortune magazine. “I negotiated my grandmother’s bill (saving her $420 per year) and wondered if there was a way to do that automatically.”
After releasing the bot to the public in November 2016, Trim reported a 70% success rate at lowering customers’ bills,with average savings of $10 each month. Trim doesn’t take a portion of the savings, either.
Why Trim Offers Several Different Features
Here at Savinly, we’ve long seen Trim as a clever method to cut expenses.
The app has been best known for helping its userscancel forgotten subscriptions— you know, recurring charges you signed up for and then neglected to cancel. Right now, you might be paying Netflix, Spotify, Audible or Planet Fitness every month without even remembering it.
After you enroll and connect your bank account and phone number, Trim examines your transaction history for repeating payments. When it spots one, the service texts you and cancels subscriptions you no longer want.
Trim says it’s constructing an online, AI assistant to assist its customers with money matters. It says the subscription-cancellation feature was only the starting point, and that the Comcast chat bot is the next phase.
“We started with the easy stuff,” Trim says. “Need to cancel an old subscription? Trim started doing that way back in 2015. We built more nifty features that save you money, like automatic Comcast bill negotiation and price protection for your Amazon purchases.”
“Now we’re beginning to tackle the tougher problems.”
And thus the robot revolution continues.
Oh — and if you’d rather bargain for yourself, check out this guide on how to negotiate a lower cable bill.
Jacob Mercer is a senior writer at Savinly. He’s skeptical of most robots, but chat bots are tolerable.
