Answer customer questions about goods or services.

Answer customer questions about goods or services. is a detailed work activity in O*NET — a concrete unit of work shared across 13 occupations and seen in 14 occupation-specific tasks. It rolls up into the broader work activity Respond to customer problems or inquiries. in Performing for or Working Directly with the Public .

Detailed work activities are the most granular shared layer in O*NET's work-activity hierarchy (Generalized → Intermediate → Detailed → occupation-specific task). The figures below describe how this activity shows up across the economy and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the work will be automated.

AI exposure

Of the 14 tasks under this activity that the OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rated, 13 (93%) are flagged as directly exposed to language models (E1) or exposed via model-powered tools (E2).

The Anthropic Economic Index observes real AI use on 9 of these tasks, with a mean mapped-usage share of 0.049% per task.

Exposure estimates overlap with model capabilities — whether a model could speed the task up — not whether the work will be done by software. Observed AI use is augmentation and assistance today, not jobs replaced.

Member tasks

Occupation-specific tasks O*NET maps to this detailed work activity, most important first.

• Provide customer service by greeting and assisting customers and responding to customer inquiries and complaints. · First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers · importance 4.7 · exposure with tools
• Explain products or services and prices, and answer questions from customers. · Telemarketers · importance 4.7 · exposure with tools
• Answer telephones and assist customers with their questions. · Tellers · importance 4.6 · direct LLM exposure
• Answer questions regarding the store and its merchandise. · Retail Salespersons · importance 4.5 · exposure with tools
• Assist customers by providing information and resolving their complaints. · Cashiers · importance 4.5 · exposure with tools
• Answer customers' questions, and provide information on procedures or policies. · Cashiers · importance 4.4 · exposure with tools
• Answer customers' questions about products, prices, availability, product uses, and credit terms. · Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products · importance 4.4 · exposure with tools
• Answer telephones to provide information and receive orders. · Counter and Rental Clerks · importance 4.3 · direct LLM exposure
• Answer simple questions about clients' businesses, using reference files. · Switchboard Operators, Including Answering Service · importance 4.2 · direct LLM exposure
• Answer questions about product features and benefits. · Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers · importance 4.2 · direct LLM exposure
• Answer customers' questions about products, prices, availability, or credit terms. · Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products · importance 4.2 · exposure with tools
• Visit trade shows, stores, community organizations, or other venues to demonstrate products or services or to answer questions from potential customers. · Demonstrators and Product Promoters · importance 4.1 · no direct exposure
• Listen to and resolve customer complaints regarding services, products, or personnel. · First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers · importance 3.9 · exposure with tools
• Answer customers' questions about services, prices, availability, or credit terms. · Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel · exposure with tools

Occupations that perform this

• First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
• Telemarketers
• Tellers
• Retail Salespersons
• Cashiers
• Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
• Counter and Rental Clerks
• Switchboard Operators, Including Answering Service
• Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers
• Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products
• Demonstrators and Product Promoters
• First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers
• Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27) Anthropic
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-answer-customer-questions-about-goods-or-services,
  title  = {Answer customer questions about goods or services.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/detailed-activities/answer-customer-questions-about-goods-or-services}
}