Confer with customers or users to assess problems
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
Software drafts well and sends at volume, and vertical support agents now resolve a large share of inbound questions end to end. What does not transfer is the relationship, and the judgment about when a message should not be sent at all.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Routine communication and explanation |
| Jobs that do it | 16 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates (4.A.4.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 16 occupations that perform it.
- Converse with customers to determine details of equipment problems.
- Confer with customers to determine the nature of malfunctions.
- Consult with customers, supervisors, or engineers to plan layout of equipment or to resolve problems in system operation or maintenance.
- Confer with customers to determine the nature of problems or to explain repairs.
- Consult with clients to assess risks and to determine security requirements.
- Read specifications or confer with customers to determine the desired custom modifications for altering the appearance of vehicles.
- Confer with customers to obtain descriptions of vehicle problems and to discuss work to be performed and future repair requirements.
- Examine and listen to equipment, read inspection reports, and confer with customers to locate and diagnose malfunctions.
- Listen to engines, examine vehicle frames, or confer with customers to determine nature and extent of malfunction or damage.
- Obtain problem descriptions from customers, and prepare cost estimates for repairs.
- Confer with customers, read work orders, or examine vehicles needing repair to determine the nature and extent of damage.
- Discuss heating or cooling system malfunctions with users to isolate problems or to verify that repairs corrected malfunctions.
- Talk to customers or refer to work orders to establish the nature of appliance malfunctions.
- Gather information from customers about a timepiece's problems and its service history.
- Confer with customers or read work orders to determine the nature and extent of damage to units.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for routine communication and explanation, and what it costs.
Drafting replies costs nothing beyond the assistant you already pay for. Only move to a support agent billed per resolution once the inbound volume is large enough that the per-resolution price beats the hour it takes you.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
16 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Audiovisual Equipment Installers and Repairers
- Automotive Body and Related Repairers
- Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics
- Computer, Automated Teller, and Office Machine Repairers
- Electrical and Electronics Installers and Repairers, Transportation Equipment
- Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Commercial and Industrial Equipment
- Electronic Equipment Installers and Repairers, Motor Vehicles
- Farm Equipment Mechanics and Service Technicians
- Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers
- Home Appliance Repairers
- Manufactured Building and Mobile Home Installers
- Motorcycle Mechanics
- Outdoor Power Equipment and Other Small Engine Mechanics
- Recreational Vehicle Service Technicians
- Security and Fire Alarm Systems Installers
- Watch and Clock Repairers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Confer with clients to determine needs or order specifications”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.