All posts tagged: Customer

Blue Origin Rocket Grounded After ‘Mishap’ Destroys Customer Satellite

Blue Origin Rocket Grounded After ‘Mishap’ Destroys Customer Satellite

Published by skeptic

Blue Origin‘s New Glenn Mission 3 (NG-3) was supposed to mark another step forward for the company’s long-awaited entry into the commercial space launch market. Instead, the heavy-lift rocket’s third flight ended in a partial failure and, for now, a full stop. The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded the New Glenn vehicle from future missions following a “mishap” during Sunday’s launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida until an investigation into the incident can be completed.  The mission wasn’t a total loss. New Glenn’s reusable first-stage booster performed as expected and landed successfully. However, the upper stage failed at the job that mattered most for the mission: delivering its payload into the correct orbit.  That payload (the BlueBird 7 communications satellite for AST SpaceMobile, Blue Origin’s first commercial launch payload for a customer) was supposed to be deployed into a roughly 285-mile orbit. Instead, it reached only about 95 miles — far too low for the satellite’s boosters to keep it in orbit. BlueBird 7 will now be deorbited and destroyed during reentry. …

Blue Origin’s New Glenn put a customer satellite in the wrong orbit during its third launch

Blue Origin’s New Glenn put a customer satellite in the wrong orbit during its third launch

Published by skeptic

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin successfully re-used one of its New Glenn rockets for the first time ever on Sunday, but the company failed at its primary mission: delivering a communications satellite to orbit for customer AST SpaceMobile. AST SpaceMobile issued a statement Sunday afternoon that the upper stage of the New Glenn rocket placed BlueBird 7 satellite into an orbit that was “lower than planned.” The satellite successfully separated from the rocket and powered on, the company said, but the altitude is too low “to sustain operations” and will now have to be de-orbited — left to burn up in the atmosphere of Earth. The cost of the loss of the satellite is covered by AST SpaceMobile’s insurance policy, according the company, and there are successive BlueBird satellites that will be completed in around a month. AST SpaceMobile has contracts with more than just Blue Origin, and the company said it expects to be able to launch 45 more to space by the end of 2026. But this represents the first major failure …

BofA Sees Customer Gas Spending Jump 16%, But Discretionary Spending Holds Up

BofA Sees Customer Gas Spending Jump 16%, But Discretionary Spending Holds Up

Published by Jenni Sidey

The national average for 87-octane gasoline has remained above the politically sensitive $4-a-gallon level for two straight weeks after the largest monthly jump in AAA data going back two decades. The fuel shock has Wall Street analysts focused on whether surging pump prices will begin crowding out discretionary spending. Bank of America CFO Alastair Borthwick told analysts on a conference call earlier today that the fuel shock at the pump has not undermined overall consumer strength so far, though that could change if the Hormuz chokepoint is not resolved in the near term, according to Bloomberg.  The BofA presentation Alastair cited showed that, for the first quarter, consumer spending at the pump was up 3%. For March, gas spending soared 16%. However, no meaningful spending pullbacks were visible elsewhere: Entertainment, travel, and retail spending all remained healthy, with entertainment spending rising 12% in the quarter. BofA has joined a number of other firms, including Chime Financial, in disclosing gas-cost impacts on their customers. Chime’s CFO warned earlier this month that clients spent 25% more on fuel …

Apple Launches New All-in-One Apple Business Platform for Device Management, Email, and Customer Engagement

Apple Launches New All-in-One Apple Business Platform for Device Management, Email, and Customer Engagement

Published by skeptic

Apple today launched its new all-in-one Apple Business platform, debuting the refreshed Apple Business web portal and accompanying app. Apple Business aggregates several of Apple’s prior business-focused products, like Apple Business Essentials, Apple Business Manager, and Apple Business Connect. The service offers organizations a unified platform for managing devices, employees, communications, and customer engagement across the Apple ecosystem. Companies can take advantage of built-in mobile device management tools (MDM) for configuring device settings, security policies, available apps, and user groups from one location. With a simplified “Blueprints” option, employers can preconfigure devices purchased from Apple or authorized retailers with settings and apps for zero-touch deployment. Employees can use Apple Business to install work-related apps, request support from employers, and contact colleagues through a company directory. Managed Apple Accounts provide “cryptographic separation” between personal and work data, so employees don’t need to deal with multiple devices. Provisioning can be automated with providers like Google Workspace and Microsoft Entra ID. Apple Business includes integrated email, calendar, and directory services linked to custom domains, plus customer engagement tools. …

Telehealth giant Hims & Hers says its customer support system was hacked

Telehealth giant Hims & Hers says its customer support system was hacked

Published by skeptic

Hims & Hers, the telehealth company that sells weight-loss drugs and sexual health prescriptions, has confirmed a data breach affecting its third-party customer service platform. The healthcare company said in a data breach notice filed with the California attorney general’s office on Thursday that the hackers stole data about user requests sent to the company’s customer support team. The company said hackers broke into its third-party ticketing system between February 4 and February 7 and stole reams of support tickets, which contained personal information submitted by customers. The data breach notice said the hackers took customer names and contact information, as well as other unspecified personal data that Hims & Hers left redacted in the letter. Although the company says customer medical records were not affected by the breach, the nature of customer support systems means that the data may contain sensitive information about a person’s account, personal information, and healthcare. It’s not yet known how many individuals had personal information compromised in the hack. Under California law, companies are required to disclose data breaches …

Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows

Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows

Published by skeptic

Tesla (TSLA) has lost another senior leader as Jose del Corral, the automaker’s head of product for customer experience, announced today that he is leaving after almost eight years to join Coinbase. Del Corral’s departure lands on the same day as yet another Cybercab production leader’s exit, extending a talent drain that has now stripped Tesla of institutional knowledge across virtually every critical function of the business. Del Corral joins Coinbase to lead customer experience Del Corral announced his move on X, writing that he will lead customer experience at the crypto exchange. He called Coinbase one of “very few companies” with the chance to “help rebuild the financial system from the ground up.” During his nearly eight years at Tesla, del Corral rose from senior manager of digital experience to head of product for the automaker’s entire customer experience operation. His scope covered the digital touchpoints — app, web, and in-store — that Tesla relies on more heavily than any traditional automaker because it sells directly to consumers without a dealer network. Advertisement – …

How NiCE Cognigy envisions the human-agent balancing act for delivering top customer service

How NiCE Cognigy envisions the human-agent balancing act for delivering top customer service

Published by skeptic

J Studios/DigitalVision via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways NiCE Cognigy has outlined its strategic direction and innovations.  The firm is building an orchestration layer for AI and human agents. Human agency is still crucial to success in an age of agentic AI. This month’s NiCE Cognigy Nexus 2026 offered enterprise CX leaders a valuable preview of agentic AI at scale and the freshly merged companies’ unified platform vision. The March 11-12 showcase in Munich, Germany, was the first combined customer event since NiCE acquired Cognigy in 2025. Initial joint events following major acquisitions tend to be revealing: they typically indicate whether a deal has a coherent strategic logic or the underlying rationale is still being worked out internally.  Based on two days of keynotes, customer presentations, product demonstrations, and direct conversations with executives and practitioners, the integration has a clear strategic direction that is ahead of comparably complex deals at this stage. Also: 5 ways to use AI when your budget is tight The observations below cover …

Worth checking out if you’re a Sky TV customer

Worth checking out if you’re a Sky TV customer

Published by Sam Flores

Our survey revealed most Sky Mobile customers are content with the value they’re receiving, with 77 per cent declaring themselves satisfied. As I stated earlier, the best deals are on offer to customers who already take other Sky products, as on a standalone basis, they aren’t always great value. For example, Sky’s cheapest tariff is only £5 per month for 1GB of data, but Lebara will offer you five times that amount of data for 5p less per month. You need to do your sums when comparing Sky tariffs, as it often offers discounts for the first six months of a deal. For example, at the time of writing, it’s offering 40GB for £18 a month and 50GB for £20 a month, but the 50GB tariff is half price for the first six months. That means it’s £36 cheaper over the course of the year to plump for the 50GB contract than it is the 40GB. How confusing. Sky also offers different discount offers on airtime if you’re buying a phone at the same time, …

Intercom’s new post-trained Fin Apex 1.0 beats GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 at customer service resolutions

Intercom’s new post-trained Fin Apex 1.0 beats GPT-5.4 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 at customer service resolutions

Published by skeptic

Intercom is taking an unusual gamble for a legacy software company: building its own AI model. The 15-year-old massive customer service platform announced Fin Apex 1.0 on Thursday, a small, purpose-built AI model that the company claims outperforms leading frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic on the metrics that matter most for customer support. The model powers Intercom’s existing Fin AI agent, which already handles over two million customer conversations weekly. According to benchmarks shared with VentureBeat, Fin Apex 1.0 achieves a 73.1% resolution rate—the percentage of customer issues fully resolved without human intervention—compared to 71.1% for both GPT-5.4 and Claude Opus 4.5, and 69.6% for Claude Sonnet 4.6. That roughly 2 percentage point margin may sound modest, but it’s wider than the typical gap between successive generations of frontier models. Fin Apex 1.0 select benchmarks comparison chart. Credit: Intercom “If you’re running large service operations at scale and you’ve got 10 million customers or a billion dollars in revenue, a delta of 2% or 3% is a really large amount of customers and interactions …

AI Customer Service Backlash as 75% of Customers Still Want Humans

AI Customer Service Backlash as 75% of Customers Still Want Humans

Published by skeptic

The growing adoption of artificial intelligence in customer support has sparked a wave of reevaluation among CEOs, as highlighted by Logically Answered. While AI systems were initially embraced for their potential to streamline operations and cut costs, their shortcomings are becoming harder to ignore. For instance, studies show that 75% of customers prefer human agents over AI, with many expressing dissatisfaction over the lack of empathy and personalization in automated interactions. This disconnect has led to tangible consequences, such as increased customer churn and reputational risks, forcing leaders to reconsider the balance between automation and human involvement. This overview explores key challenges and lessons learned from high-profile cases, offering insights into how businesses can navigate these complexities. You’ll discover why some companies are shifting toward hybrid models that combine AI with human expertise, how operational risks like prompt injection attacks are reshaping security priorities and what ethical considerations must be addressed to maintain customer trust. By examining these factors, organizations can better align their AI strategies with both operational goals and customer expectations. AI Challenges …