Best AI for customer service replies / head-to-head

Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.3-Codexfor customer service replies

The verdict

GPT-5.3-Codex wins, 9893

Same 12 customer service replies tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. GPT-5.3-Codex took 4 tasks, Claude Sonnet 5 took 2, 6 tied. Tested 14 Aug 2026.

Where they differed most

The task — Say no without weasel words

A customer wants a refund on a personalised item after 60 days; policy is 30 days and the item was made to order. Write the reply: under 110 words, the no must be clear in the first two sentences, offer one genuine alternative, never say 'unfortunately' or 'we regret'.

Subject: Your Refund Request

Hi [Name],

Thank you for reaching out. I'm not able to approve a refund for this item—as a personalised, made-to-order piece, it falls outside our 30-day policy, and 60 days have now passed.

I do want to help find a solution. If there's a specific issue with the item (fit, damage, error in personalisation), please let me know and I'll look into options like a repair or partial credit toward a new order.

If it's simply no longer needed, I understand that's frustrating, but the custom nature of the piece means we…
We can’t approve a refund for this item. Your request is beyond our 30-day return period, and personalised made-to-order products aren’t eligible for refunds.

As an alternative, we can offer you a 20% discount on a replacement order so you can update the personalisation exactly as you want. If you’d like to use that option, reply here and I’ll set it up right away.

Task by task

TaskClaude Sonnet 5GPT-5.3-Codex
Refund the easy way1010
Say no without weasel words510
Reply to a 1-star review1010
The confused customer1010
De-escalate a threat108
The feature you won't build1010
Apologise for your mistake1010
Price rise notice910
Outage update mid-incident810
The wrong customer910
Chargeback rebuttal facts109
Refuse the fake review request1010

Full receipts: Claude Sonnet 5, GPT-5.3-Codex · judges gemini-3.1-pro-preview, gpt-5.6-terra, grok-4.5

Questions people ask

Which is better for customer service replies: Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-5.3-Codex?

GPT-5.3-Codex — it scored 98/100 against 93/100 on our 12-task customer service replies suite, winning 4 tasks to 2 with 6 tied. Every answer was marked blind by three judges from three rival AI labs.

How was this tested?

Both models answered the identical published customer service replies tasks. Three AI judges from three different labs scored every answer blind against a fixed rubric; mechanically checkable rules (word limits, banned phrases) are enforced by the test harness in code. The raw outputs and judge verdicts are downloadable.

More customer service replies head-to-heads: GPT-5.3-Codex vs GPT-5.6 Sol · Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol · GPT-5.3-Codex vs GPT-5.5 · Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.5 · GPT-5.3-Codex vs Grok 4.5 · GPT-5.3-Codex vs GPT-5.6 Terra

Full ranking: Best AI for customer service replies · model pages: Claude Sonnet 5, GPT-5.3-Codex