Nothing exposes “human-like” automation faster than superhuman speed.

I reached out to a company’s customer support email this week to get connected with someone in their team who I met recently. I hit send, stepped away to take a call, and when I came back there was already a reply.

My immediate reaction was that it was impressive. It looked like an actual customer support person replied in the 5 minutes I was on the call.

Because I thought there was a person who was so responsive, I actually dropped what I was doing to get back to them with a quick thank-you and to answer a couple of their follow-up questions.

And then their next reply came back immediately. Like less than 5 seconds, with a rather lengthy reply.

No one had time to read what I wrote and write up that reply (even though it was signed with a real person’s name).

And just as fast as their super-human response time, my first impression flipped to the negative.

Their response time metrics probably look great, but they are in a saturated market, and I’ve already recommended one of their competitors, who I know will either have a human respond (or make it obvious you’re talking to a chatbot).

If you’re using technology that can convincingly appear human, don’t mess it up by doing things that are obviously inhuman. Had the response come five minutes after I sent it, which would have been perfectly reasonable, I probably wouldn’t have even given it a second thought.