Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means[citation needed]. Examples of automated means are Internet sites. An advantage with automated means is an increased ability to provide service 24-hours a day, which can, at least, be a complement to customer service by persons.[5]

Another example of automated customer service is by touch-tone phone, which usually involves a main menu, and the use of the keypad as options (i.e. “Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish”, etc.)

However, in the Internet era, a challenge has been to maintain and/or enhance the personal experience while making use of the efficiencies of online commerce. “Online customers are literally invisible to you (and you to them), so it’s easy to shortchange them emotionally. But this lack of visual and tactile presence makes it even more crucial to create a sense of personal, human-to-human connection in the online arena.”[6]
An automated online assistant with avatar providing automated customer service on a web page.

Examples of customer service by artificial means are automated online assistants that can be seen as avatars on websites.[5] It can avail for enterprises to reduce their operating and training cost.[5] These are driven by chatterbots, and a major underlying technology to such systems is natural language processing.[5]