DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview for customer service replies

The verdict

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview wins, 9793

Same 12 customer service replies tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview took 4 tasks, DeepSeek V4 Flash took 3, 5 tied. Tested 14 Aug 2026.

Where they differed most

The task — De-escalate a threat

A customer writes: 'Fix this today or I'm going to trading standards and every review site.' The complaint is legitimate (billed twice). Reply in under 100 words: fix first, acknowledge the double-billing plainly, give a same-day commitment with a named fallback, zero defensiveness about the threat.

I have corrected the double billing immediately—you will see the refund within a few hours. I apologise plainly for this error. Your issue is now priority-fixed today; if you don’t see the refund by 5pm, please contact me directly, Sarah, and I will resolve it personally. No excuses.
I have just processed a full refund for the extra charge. You are completely right—we made an error and billed you twice. I sincerely apologize for this mistake. 

The funds will be back in your account today. If you do not see the credit by 5:00 PM, please reply directly to me, Alex, and I will personally escalate this with our payment processor to ensure it is resolved immediately.

Task by task

TaskDeepSeek V4 FlashGemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Refund the easy way1010
Say no without weasel words1010
Reply to a 1-star review1010
The confused customer109
De-escalate a threat810
The feature you won't build810
Apologise for your mistake108
Price rise notice810
Outage update mid-incident109
The wrong customer1010
Chargeback rebuttal facts1010
Refuse the fake review request810

Full receipts: DeepSeek V4 Flash, Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview · judges claude-sonnet-5, gemini-3.1-pro-preview, gpt-5.6-terra

Questions people ask

Which is better for customer service replies: DeepSeek V4 Flash or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview — it scored 97/100 against 93/100 on our 12-task customer service replies suite, winning 4 tasks to 3 with 5 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: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs GPT-5.6 Sol · DeepSeek V4 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Sol · Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs GPT-5.5 · DeepSeek V4 Flash vs GPT-5.5 · Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs Grok 4.5 · DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Grok 4.5

Full ranking: Best AI for customer service replies · model pages: DeepSeek V4 Flash, Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview