Assist customers, such as responding to customer complaints and updating them about back-ordered parts.

“Assist customers, such as responding to customer complaints and updating them about back-ordered parts.” is a core task performed by Parts Salespersons. Among the occupation's 19 rated tasks, workers place it 18th by importance (#2 most important). About 100% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Explain technical details of products or services. in Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E2. Exposure with tools — software built on top of a language model (not the model alone) could cut the time by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.50. Automation potential label: T2.

How AI is actually used on this kind of task

The Anthropic Economic Index observes how people actually use AI on tasks like this one across millions of real conversations.

• 41% of that use is work-related
• Average autonomy of the AI: 3.1 (1–5; higher = more autonomous)
• 100% of interactions still needed a human in the loop

Observed AI use describes people choosing to use AI as a tool on this kind of task today. It is augmentation and assistance, not a measure of jobs replaced.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Receive payment or obtain credit authorization. · importance 4.7
• Fill customer orders from stock, and place orders when requested items are out of stock. · importance 4.6
• Receive and fill telephone orders for parts. · importance 4.6
• Locate and label parts, and maintain inventory of stock. · importance 4.5
• Prepare sales slips or sales contracts. · importance 4.5
• Read catalogs, microfiche viewers, or computer displays to determine replacement part stock numbers and prices. · importance 4.4
• Determine replacement parts required, according to inspections of old parts, customer requests, or customers' descriptions of malfunctions. · importance 4.4
• Examine returned parts for defects, and exchange defective parts or refund money. · importance 4.3
• Manage shipments by researching shipping methods or costs and tracking packages. · importance 4.3
• Mark and store parts in stockrooms, according to prearranged systems. · importance 4.2
• Maintain and clean work and inventory areas. · importance 4.1
• Place new merchandise on display. · importance 4.1
• Advise customers on substitution or modification of parts when identical replacements are not available. · importance 4.0
• Discuss use and features of various parts, based on knowledge of machines or equipment. · importance 3.9

See all tasks on the Parts Salespersons page.

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-task-20776,
  title  = {Assist customers, such as responding to customer complaints and updating them about back-ordered parts.},
  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/tasks/task-20776}
}