I think companies are just beginning to learn how to do this in a way that benefits them and their customers (which is why I largely agree with the poor UX and blandness you're describing).
I work at a company that's helping businesses automate parts of their customer support with chatbots and you'd be surprised to learn that CSAT improves when they employ some automation. Usually this means getting a quicker first response to the customer's question (and some of the time successfully answering it!) as well as automating tedious data collection (what device are you on? what's your email? etc.).
It's early days for chatbots and I think we'll see a lot of improvement where automation through conversation should be and I think we'll also see the rest shake out.
More to your point: I agree with you, IVRs are usually really bad, but some of them are impressive. Have you used Apple's recently? It's very good at routing and making cases where it's uncertain invisible.
I work at a company that's helping businesses automate parts of their customer support with chatbots and you'd be surprised to learn that CSAT improves when they employ some automation. Usually this means getting a quicker first response to the customer's question (and some of the time successfully answering it!) as well as automating tedious data collection (what device are you on? what's your email? etc.).
It's early days for chatbots and I think we'll see a lot of improvement where automation through conversation should be and I think we'll also see the rest shake out.
More to your point: I agree with you, IVRs are usually really bad, but some of them are impressive. Have you used Apple's recently? It's very good at routing and making cases where it's uncertain invisible.