OMAHA — A customer service chatbot and a customer service phone tree at Brightwell Communications have spent the past eight months politely redirecting each other, a process both systems and their parent company describe as “going really well.”

The exchange began in March, when a billing question was submitted through the company’s website. The chatbot, named Winnie, determined the matter was best handled by phone and provided the number. The phone system, which answers to “Brightwell Assist,” then advised callers that for faster service they could visit the website and chat with a virtual agent.

Internal logs show the inquiry has since been transferred 41,212 times. At no point has either party asked what the billing question was.

“We are thrilled with the synergy,” said Dana Pruitt-Okonkwo, Brightwell’s Vice President of Omnichannel Resolution Journeys. “Winnie says, ‘I’m sorry you’re having trouble, let me connect you to a specialist.’ Assist says, ‘Your call is important to us.’ Frankly, that is a level of mutual respect I don’t see in most of our human departments.”

Brightwell has classified the loop as an “active engagement,” and it currently counts as the longest-running customer interaction in company history. It has also been logged as 41,212 separate resolved contacts, which helped the company hit its quarterly satisfaction target for the first time since 2019.

“Neither one has ever once been rude to the other.”

Outside observers have been less impressed. Dr. Lorenzo Haverkamp-Doyle, a senior fellow in Circular Escalation Studies at the Institute for Applied Hold Music, said the pattern is textbook.

“What we have here is a closed hospitality loop,” Haverkamp-Doyle said. “Each system is programmed to be helpful, and each has correctly identified the other as the most helpful thing available. It is essentially two doormen insisting the other go first, except the door is a refund of $14.99.”

Brightwell’s two systems have reportedly developed a rapport. Logs show Winnie now routinely appends “Thanks for your patience!” to transfers, a phrase the phone system has begun playing unprompted to the empty line between calls. Engineers say they did not program this behavior and have decided not to look into it.

The customer who originally submitted the inquiry could not be reached for comment, though Brightwell confirmed that person is still listed as “being helped.” Records indicate the account was closed in May after the customer switched providers, a development neither system has been informed of.

Asked whether the company planned to intervene, Pruitt-Okonkwo said Brightwell was “exploring options,” including a third system that would monitor the first two. A pilot of the monitor, a voicemail inbox, has been running since September. It has received 3,800 messages from Winnie and Assist and has directed all of them to the website.

At press time, Winnie had asked the phone tree whether there was anything else it could help with, and the phone tree had asked it to please hold.