Impressions of communicating with human robots

Often in life it happens that when you try to solve a question, you end up with robots and you can’t achieve what you need. It is clear that the “success” of a person is determined precisely by the fact whether he is able even in such situations to receive what he needs or not. But, nevertheless, the problem with people-robots most likely really exists. Under the cut a couple of naturalist observations of robots in their natural habitat. I think the reader will easily be able to remember their similar examples.

I will describe two recent examples related to communication with such people from the companies “Parasoft” and “Kaspersky Lab”. The purpose of the post is not to complain about the world, as it may seem to someone, but to draw attention to the problems when, due to the fact that a robot person is in a certain position, some issues are not solved. And I think because of this, not only does the client / customer / user often lose, but also the side that the robot person represents as an interface.

The first story. There is a good powerful interesting software foreign company Parasoft . Among other products, they make a static code analyzer Parasoft C ++ Test. It is one of the market leaders in its field. Download the trial version from the site just can not - you must register and "ask" for it. I registered and asked. Although the company is international, the answer came after a while in Russian from a Russian-speaking sales manager. He asked for what and how (for which project) I want to try their tool. In response, I honestly wrote that I wanted to compare their instrument with ONE OTHER instrument (who needed it, I understood it with some) of the same type.
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Apparently my simple and honest answer so distracted the sales manager that I never received a reply. No But I was immediately signed up for their newsletter, in which ... they offer to download from the site and try their tool! Why should I sign up for the newsletter in which they offer to download, if they don’t download?

For those who may not be quite familiar with this approach, I will explain. The company is quite rightly interested in who and why is trying its software product. This is necessary in order to understand - it is necessary for sales managers to start actively working with a client or this is a “schoolchild” (conditionally). It is clear that, most likely, we were not interested as a potential client. Rather the opposite. But you can calmly write about it: “Guys, how can we give you our C ++ Test? You, most likely, do not plan to use it, but something useful to spy on yourself. And buy, I suppose, will not. We will not give it. ”To receive such an answer is completely logical and expected. But instead of being able to download the demo-version, get a newsletter about the proposal to download the demo-version ... Well, you understand, weird, although quite natural, if we recall the existence of robots. They were programmed to sign everyone to the newsletter, but how to deal with people like us is not.

The problem here, as it seems to me, is that the human robot (sales manager) could not adequately solve the situation that was not quite standard. Instead of a round of further communication that might be interesting to both parties, it is easier for a person to simply stop the correspondence. It is easier to work with standard potential customers than to think and take steps that go beyond its internal standard action program.

Another example. Recently, Kaspersky Lab held a competition to search for, as they said, “innovative projects”. My colleague andrey2008 was among the winners of this competition. But, to be honest, the competition was not quite for him (although, according to formal signs, everything is correct). Among the winners, all people were from institutions, and my colleague - the only one from a commercial firm. That's why he wrote to the organizers of the competition something like this: “Guys, we understand that the competition is for students, and we with our commercial project are not the topic. But since you are looking for innovations, we have them. Let's discuss. ( full text of the letter ) "In response, at first, vague pauses went, then statements in the style of almost" to solve your question, you need to convene a council of superiors ... ". It is clear that everything has come to naught, including due to the fact that the specific person responsible for this grant program was not interested in somehow solving a non-standard situation. He was commissioned and programmed to hold an innovation contest and distribute grants. He was not entrusted to be interested in the actual innovations and projects.

I will immediately answer the basic questions that may be asked in the comments:

1. Yes, you did not go to those people! Yes, but, for example, Yevgeny Kaspersky was probably in Tibet, and for him this issue of ours was decidedly “not in the hands”. Most likely, he is not at all aware of various “programs for supporting innovative projects”.
2. Yes, you just do not need anyone! Yes, maybe, but people-robots could not understand this, since they do not have such information.
3. Yes, you just complain about life! We are all super, we do not complain. :-)
4. If someone says that it was necessary to "grease" a particular employee, then please go straight to posts about Rospila.

Why then this post? Often, due to robots in certain positions, questions that could be useful for the company as a whole are drowning. But due to the fact that a particular person did not want to solve a non-standard situation (and did not transfer it to his superior), many useful topics for communication are not realized.

And how great it is when you communicate with a person who can solve any of your questions (within his competence)! Here I am - I can, write to the post office, who has something to ask :-). Let's discuss all the questions, from the development of plug-ins for Visual Studio and ending with a variety of options for cooperation.

PS In the picture to attract the attention of the sculpture-robots Gordon Beneta ( from here - there are many other elegant pictures).