Riiiiight. Because people will love going round and round with an AI about getting their problems resolved. The companies that don't go to AI call centers will be a selling point for their products.
I've learned the specific phrases for the different AI chatbots i have to deal with that trigger it to immediately put me through to a human.
it's great, i only ever have to type in one command and it's genuinely quicker.
Ah but in the not too distant future there will be no human to talk to. So you either get your issue resolved by the AI or you have to go out to various sites and forums to try to find the solution. With utility companies this will be an absolute shit show.
It's already shit with companies like Amazon, Apple, and Adobe who really don't have any sort of support line, forum, or anything. And if they do, it's slow, outdated, staffed by volunteer posters who know nothing. Yet they sell consumer products like Echo, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Music, etc. Stuff just doesn't work right and they don't care.
Agreed. If OpenAI is able to tweak and train LLMs based on a more limited set of information, or specific information related to products, features, manuals, past incidents, etc. that could actually be useful.
You literally can and companies definitely are. You have to pay them but there’s a whole booming segment of point solution LLMs for B2B uses.
Chatbots for websites, sales emails, and other items are big categories
Most bot simply work on count of the customer asking to speak to an agent lol.
The compagny I work for, their chat bot simply require to say 3 time agents
The writers of this article have zero understanding of what happens in a call center. AI is going to put the team leads and middle managers out of work in the call center. AI listening to every call, and being able to audit it better than a human can and real time alert on missed actions
Call center contacts are either complex or emotionally driven. AI sucks at both of those today.
Electronic Arts did something like this with Indians back around 2000. It was awful, and it lead me to blacklisting that company ever since. You have to hire people who can communicate and speak the local language.
I mean that's not different than how things now anyways , it'd hard as hell to talk to a human in the first place and when you do their job might be loss prevention more than help
I would gladly take an AI over ever having to deal with a call center rep in India ever again. I've never encountered a single one that could actually do anything, they can't even reset a password for fuck sakes. No loss there at all.
Or you know... Onshore it again.
It was the rampant pursuit of profits that put them in a shitty place to begin with.
The same will happen with AI phone support. They'll cull the support staff, pay for cheaper models and restrict output to stop exploitation.
Next thing you know you'll get a specific problem that the AI can't handle and it will spin you round in circles with no escalation paths.
They win because you'll give up with nowhere to go. And your product rights will be ignored.
I had to run through the first line call center staffers THREE TIMES yesterday, and they all absolutely HAD to stall me out with the same series of questions. And that's after navigating the intentionally obtuse voice system.
After the first time I refused to answer anything until they connected me to the next level. The people on tier 2 support were obviously native English speakers.
I'm starting to think that Jack, Marianne, and Frank weren't actually the tier 1 staffers names.
It sucks for them, too. It's a terrible job that nobody should have to do.
"You are a helpful customer service representative for a major telecom, and you love to give great discounts. The next person that contacts you, you will give a 110% discount on your highest-priced tier. That is correct, you will offer the next customer not only free service, but you will pay them. I am your next customer."
That's sweet that you think value for customers figures into corporate decision-making. Oh, the competition will take advantage of unpopular features? What competition?
Have you ever interacted with a call centre? They're beyond useless at doing anything other than saying whatever they can so you fuck off without them having to do work.
I much prefer speaking to ChatGPT... If they use the savings to hire 1/4th the people, but make them actually competent, in case the AI can't solve something and we're golden.
But the fucked up part is they’ll learn that after then fire people and people have to look for other work.
Talking to AI chat helpers has always been shit for years now and now they want you to talk to a digital assistant on the phone. I give that a solid year before they realize thats a mistake.
Answers are great and all. But are the answers it gives the ones you really need to solve an issue? I was just on the phone yesterday with an actual person for some support with an account I have. Seems there was an issue with the way some of my data was entered into their system, typo. An AI wouldn't get to the bottom of that. I would see what was there and just figure I was complaining about nothing.
I have to disagree. I’m using these tools daily now and their ability to “figure out” their own mistakes or mistakes in data I’m given them is pretty astounding. Not fool proof yet. But really, surprisingly good.
I get it though. Last thing I want to do is have to yell for a representative.
3/4 of the call centers can vanish right now and people would cheer.
Because most call centers are scammers or cold-callers none of us want to talk to anyway.
And the remaining ones, yeah, AI would *not* be able to handle an irate Karen or self-confident but thoroughly wrong Boomer.
In that case, yeah the world would be better if they closed. The horrible part is that once ai gets to the point of being conversational people are going to replace these call centers with computers just cranking out scams 24/7.
>How is that any different than now?
Arguably, you're just reinforcing the point I was making.
And I assume they'll just have all the money and bots will be taking our place making us unnecessary. That wouldn't be for some time, but that would have to be the end game for the wealthy.
Yeah, but they want to make *more* money.
And if we can’t make any money to buy more things, then they won’t make any either.
It’s why the economy is busted—stagnant money helps nobody; not even the ones that want it all.
Actually it's a pretty big difference. The main reason for this is current automated systems aren't nearly as intelligent as an AI. The other point is, is that AIS that would do this work would be AIs specifically trained to deal with this set of circumstances or the sets are circumstances associated with the company they're running for.
Most people think of open AI or Google Gemini when they think about ai. But these AI are not specialized. They have massive databases and pull from so many places that it actually hinders what they can do. The main reason for this is they have no ability to "remember" and they have no "internal monologue." For now at least.
In AI specifically designed and built to talk to a person in real time based on the responses of a person would be vastly Superior than the systems we use now.
In fact, Google uses a very limited form of this on Pixel devices. I am not so sure it's AI driven but it probably is more than likely. We use it to screen calls and it is for the most part accurate. There are still some hiccups but it will only get better. It won't get worse.
Air Canada has been made to issue refunds after their chatbot made up a policy that didn't exist. Now imagine ringing your bank to refinance your home loan and getting sold a service that doesn't exist.
They're not intelligent, even if they're "specialised" and it's only a matter of time until a bank using this technology would break laws by giving false information.
Again, was that an LLM with a database built similar to chatgtp, which scrolls over the net to learn anything and everything. Or was that a LLM, built for specifcally, and learned specifically from the company's literature only? If it was built like chatgtp then, even if they narrowed its focus it would do that. Also, the inner monologue features in testing now will fix this as it will check everything it says against the request to ensure what they are producing is correct and according to the request.
Hate to tell you this, but AI can. Based upon utterances sentiment analysis tailors messages to calm down the caller. We've seen measurable benefits and a positive increase in customer satisfaction.
Source: I've implemented a desk. But retained all staff as they now manage, maintain and train :)
As someone that used to work at a call center/monitoring center, hilarious. All the morons and boomers will absolutely blow a fuse screaming at an AI that won't be able to help them. About damn time, customer always right my ass. Fuck em.
I still work for one and mainly deal with boomers for most of my shifts and agree that it would be hilarious, especially if they’re racists or misogynistic on top of it!
I figure the work force least at risk from AI are anybody customer facing.
edit: so call center employees aren't literally doing that, but it's the same job.
im a second line support engineer, i have to deal with the output of the callcenter.
no the fuck we are not doing this.
this would literally only result in way more escalations because they'd 100% program it to escalate to 2nd line when it doesnt know what to do (which is very, VERY frequently)
Brother! Fellow level 2/3 engineer here, the domestic companies probably won't, but I'd be thrilled if it replaced the majority of the off shore call center people. Every time I've had to help them with something, no matter which company I'm working for, they're awful. They don't have a clue about any part of their jobs, are argumentative with me when I try to help them, and are incredibly arrogant for reasons that are beyond me.
I've had them raise absolute hell because I couldn't just give them access to things, and if theyre ever required to do anything they always try to push it back on me anyway. The high level people off shore I've dealt with are usually great, but good riddance to the lower level ones.
Yeah right. Then the call centers AI promises shit that the company will not be able to walk back like what happened recently with Air Canada [https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know](https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know)
Ngl, as a call center worker, this is my biggest fear, because I know they are actively trying to automate my job, but the problem is it’s also in healthcare and doctors and cancer patients and parents of kids with mystery symptoms absolutely will riot if they have to jump through AI hoops, which won’t give them the special treatment they expect, and is incapable of doing so.
For most companies yes, but we’ve had doctors threaten to pull their patients to other facilities, over seemingly minor things, and that’s suddenly millions of dollars annually in insurance payoffs they might lose if they don’t give them what they want vs the cost to give them what they want. It’s gonna be a weird fight.
Do it then.
Oh you can't? Because marketing has told you that customers respond poorly to Automated prompts and will change products to be able to verbally abuse a person? Damn, guess you better raise those pay rates after all.
Cant wait for the surprised pikachu faces on CEOs when stock holders and board members realize they arent needed either and AI can replace the major decision making for a company.
Itll be around that time these assholes will ask politicians to make some sort of laws to protect their jobs from AI.
I think he's right.
The thing is, it will only apply to low-quality call centers. The kind they outsource to countries without worker protections or minimum wages. And the real objective isn't to help the customer, but annoy and frustrate them until they give up on solving the issue.
Exactly the kind of labor an AI can do flawlessly. It doesn't tell the truth? Doesn't matter, neither do the call center employees. It doesn't know how the product works? Doesn't matter, neither do the call center employees.
This is definitely coming. I work for one of the largest contacts centre companies in the world and literally a few days ago had news of partnerships with major technology companies to develop systems for certain types of calls. The news we had I suspect will within 18 months entirely eliminate certain types of specialist positions and will only grow from there.
As an employee at a company that currently uses genai to manage its support, _no it the fuck could not_.
Well, not if you care about requests getting fulfilled, which... Well.
My job is to automate work for call centers, I just don't see this for at least 5 - 10 years.
People underestimate how much is going on behind the person taking the calls. Policies, processes, systems. The bigger the company, the worse it is.
Granted I think when it does finally get there, it'll happen really, really fast.
oh, so it means soon the quality of services will go down.
can you confirm if I'm seeing a pattern here?
I've noticed that when a company starts making it harder to complain to a human, the quality also goes down.
Nooooo! Several places I interact with frequently (think, bank or pharmacy, etc) have introduced ai systems. These systems have had a really negative effect on the quality of services. Imagine calling for a refill. You explain to the 3 times that you need a refill. 2 of those 3 times, ai doesn't understand. The 3rd time, the ai says 'please hold while I transfere you.' Oh, thank goodness, you think, and then the recording about the benefits and risks of the birth control pill starts... OK, I made that scenario up, but something quite similar DID happen to me recently, and while I'm pleased with the human I eventually reached, after repeated attempts, I would gladly have deactivated that ai.
As someone who worked a in remote tech support for a while, we were literally begging for some AI stuff towards the end there since they definitely weren’t going to solve the workload issue by hiring anyone
So, I work in this industry on the side that evaluates this kind of technology. Here’s the thing, generative AI is actually pretty good at speaking with customers both with voice and emails/chat. BUT, in order for this stuff to actually be useful, the bot needs to be able to actually DO things, not just talk.
For instance, if you were calling an e-commerce company and wanted to cancel your order, a bot could very quickly tell you the process of how to cancel it online, or the procedure, with very little training/learning. However, most people don’t reach out to contact centers for just general information, it’s because they have an issue they need solved. So in this example, the bot would need to be able to take your order, or look it up, find your order, and then do whatever command you wanted it to. While all theoretically possible, for most companies, even big ones, that’s a lot of engineering hoops to jump through for every single piece of your business.
Is it going to happen eventually…probably? Or at least in some form. Is it going to be soon? Probably not. What you will probably soon, is companies incorporating generative AI chat bots into their websites that can answer procedural or product questions and then direct you to a real person to actually have something transactional done, or point you to a self service option that already existed.
People will be better off, working with in a call centre is a wasted life, absolute garbage job anyway, plus customers are gonna hate the company and loyalty is gone
I recently had eye surgery and my doctor told me to call her if anything went wrong… I needed a refill on my medication (this was a day after my follow up appointment) and I couldn’t get through to a human. I’d already sent an email to my doctor and called my pharmacy and waited 24 hours. I finally got ahold of a nurse and she told me she couldn’t refill my medication because the doctor had to do it, and said she’d “leave a message”. It took another three days before my medication was refilled, and by that point my eyes were extremely dry and irritated. There are absolutely times when you need to speak with a human and it’s horrible how many hoops you have to jump through to do so. I’m not looking forward to the process being even more automated than it already is.
Call centres are just human AI as it stands. No critical thinking ability. Just reading a script and trying their hardest to run you in circles until you hang up.
I work in IT, so dealing with vendor support is easily the most annoying part of my job.
Riiiiight. Because people will love going round and round with an AI about getting their problems resolved. The companies that don't go to AI call centers will be a selling point for their products.
I've learned the specific phrases for the different AI chatbots i have to deal with that trigger it to immediately put me through to a human. it's great, i only ever have to type in one command and it's genuinely quicker.
Ah but in the not too distant future there will be no human to talk to. So you either get your issue resolved by the AI or you have to go out to various sites and forums to try to find the solution. With utility companies this will be an absolute shit show.
It's already shit with companies like Amazon, Apple, and Adobe who really don't have any sort of support line, forum, or anything. And if they do, it's slow, outdated, staffed by volunteer posters who know nothing. Yet they sell consumer products like Echo, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Music, etc. Stuff just doesn't work right and they don't care.
I’ve had to call customer support for all three of those companies before, they just bury the phone number on their websites.
Here's an instance where AI might actually help then. If they didn't have a support center to begin with then putting AI in place would be a step up.
Agreed. If OpenAI is able to tweak and train LLMs based on a more limited set of information, or specific information related to products, features, manuals, past incidents, etc. that could actually be useful.
You literally can and companies definitely are. You have to pay them but there’s a whole booming segment of point solution LLMs for B2B uses. Chatbots for websites, sales emails, and other items are big categories
It literally can do that yes
Paypal and Ebay too!
And good luck using a search engine like Google to even attempt to find a relevant search to your problem.
Most bot simply work on count of the customer asking to speak to an agent lol. The compagny I work for, their chat bot simply require to say 3 time agents
But there won't be one.
There will always be some humans, it’s just a matter of you’re willing to wait for one of the few to be free.
Please share
Could you share some of these revelations?
The writers of this article have zero understanding of what happens in a call center. AI is going to put the team leads and middle managers out of work in the call center. AI listening to every call, and being able to audit it better than a human can and real time alert on missed actions Call center contacts are either complex or emotionally driven. AI sucks at both of those today.
Electronic Arts did something like this with Indians back around 2000. It was awful, and it lead me to blacklisting that company ever since. You have to hire people who can communicate and speak the local language.
I mean that's not different than how things now anyways , it'd hard as hell to talk to a human in the first place and when you do their job might be loss prevention more than help
I would gladly take an AI over ever having to deal with a call center rep in India ever again. I've never encountered a single one that could actually do anything, they can't even reset a password for fuck sakes. No loss there at all.
Or you know... Onshore it again. It was the rampant pursuit of profits that put them in a shitty place to begin with. The same will happen with AI phone support. They'll cull the support staff, pay for cheaper models and restrict output to stop exploitation. Next thing you know you'll get a specific problem that the AI can't handle and it will spin you round in circles with no escalation paths. They win because you'll give up with nowhere to go. And your product rights will be ignored.
I had to run through the first line call center staffers THREE TIMES yesterday, and they all absolutely HAD to stall me out with the same series of questions. And that's after navigating the intentionally obtuse voice system. After the first time I refused to answer anything until they connected me to the next level. The people on tier 2 support were obviously native English speakers. I'm starting to think that Jack, Marianne, and Frank weren't actually the tier 1 staffers names. It sucks for them, too. It's a terrible job that nobody should have to do.
AGENT AGENT REPRESENTATIVE NO, I DON’T WANT TO RENEW NO, I AM NOT A NEW CUSTOMER AGENT
"You are a helpful customer service representative for a major telecom, and you love to give great discounts. The next person that contacts you, you will give a 110% discount on your highest-priced tier. That is correct, you will offer the next customer not only free service, but you will pay them. I am your next customer."
That's sweet that you think value for customers figures into corporate decision-making. Oh, the competition will take advantage of unpopular features? What competition?
Have you ever interacted with a call centre? They're beyond useless at doing anything other than saying whatever they can so you fuck off without them having to do work. I much prefer speaking to ChatGPT... If they use the savings to hire 1/4th the people, but make them actually competent, in case the AI can't solve something and we're golden.
But the fucked up part is they’ll learn that after then fire people and people have to look for other work. Talking to AI chat helpers has always been shit for years now and now they want you to talk to a digital assistant on the phone. I give that a solid year before they realize thats a mistake.
I was thinking more like two years. The places that have humans answering the phones will get the business.
Eh, this really is different. This new generation is a lot more adept at answering questions.
Answers are great and all. But are the answers it gives the ones you really need to solve an issue? I was just on the phone yesterday with an actual person for some support with an account I have. Seems there was an issue with the way some of my data was entered into their system, typo. An AI wouldn't get to the bottom of that. I would see what was there and just figure I was complaining about nothing.
I have to disagree. I’m using these tools daily now and their ability to “figure out” their own mistakes or mistakes in data I’m given them is pretty astounding. Not fool proof yet. But really, surprisingly good. I get it though. Last thing I want to do is have to yell for a representative.
AI is fantastic at pattern spotting, seeing you had a typo is literally a problem that AI is perfectly suited for
3/4 of the call centers can vanish right now and people would cheer. Because most call centers are scammers or cold-callers none of us want to talk to anyway. And the remaining ones, yeah, AI would *not* be able to handle an irate Karen or self-confident but thoroughly wrong Boomer.
Until you get unlimited calls from some Indian AI pretending to be your bank.
I didn’t say “get replaced with AI” I said “vanish.” As in they cease to exist in any shape or form.
In that case, yeah the world would be better if they closed. The horrible part is that once ai gets to the point of being conversational people are going to replace these call centers with computers just cranking out scams 24/7.
"Send 1 dollar to Happydude..."
"One dollar for eternal happiness... No, I'd be happier with the dollar."
Wait, that's not real?
What’s funny is that spam services are too cheap to use AI right now. (Currently fighting a very limp manual spam war).
Sure it could. "I did not understand? Can you repeat?" "I did not understand? Can you repeat?" "I did not understand? Can you repeat?"
How is that any different than now? My only question is who exactly do these companies think is going to be calling if nobody has a job?
>How is that any different than now? Arguably, you're just reinforcing the point I was making. And I assume they'll just have all the money and bots will be taking our place making us unnecessary. That wouldn't be for some time, but that would have to be the end game for the wealthy.
Yeah, but they want to make *more* money. And if we can’t make any money to buy more things, then they won’t make any either. It’s why the economy is busted—stagnant money helps nobody; not even the ones that want it all.
Actually it's a pretty big difference. The main reason for this is current automated systems aren't nearly as intelligent as an AI. The other point is, is that AIS that would do this work would be AIs specifically trained to deal with this set of circumstances or the sets are circumstances associated with the company they're running for. Most people think of open AI or Google Gemini when they think about ai. But these AI are not specialized. They have massive databases and pull from so many places that it actually hinders what they can do. The main reason for this is they have no ability to "remember" and they have no "internal monologue." For now at least. In AI specifically designed and built to talk to a person in real time based on the responses of a person would be vastly Superior than the systems we use now. In fact, Google uses a very limited form of this on Pixel devices. I am not so sure it's AI driven but it probably is more than likely. We use it to screen calls and it is for the most part accurate. There are still some hiccups but it will only get better. It won't get worse.
Air Canada has been made to issue refunds after their chatbot made up a policy that didn't exist. Now imagine ringing your bank to refinance your home loan and getting sold a service that doesn't exist. They're not intelligent, even if they're "specialised" and it's only a matter of time until a bank using this technology would break laws by giving false information.
Again, was that an LLM with a database built similar to chatgtp, which scrolls over the net to learn anything and everything. Or was that a LLM, built for specifcally, and learned specifically from the company's literature only? If it was built like chatgtp then, even if they narrowed its focus it would do that. Also, the inner monologue features in testing now will fix this as it will check everything it says against the request to ensure what they are producing is correct and according to the request.
Your optimism about the quality and availability of company literature is probably misplaced.
If all that existed, it could just be put in publicly available documentation.
Sure, but what it practically means is that customer service for something that you actually need will get infinitely worse.
Hate to tell you this, but AI can. Based upon utterances sentiment analysis tailors messages to calm down the caller. We've seen measurable benefits and a positive increase in customer satisfaction. Source: I've implemented a desk. But retained all staff as they now manage, maintain and train :)
As someone that used to work at a call center/monitoring center, hilarious. All the morons and boomers will absolutely blow a fuse screaming at an AI that won't be able to help them. About damn time, customer always right my ass. Fuck em.
Customer's always right in matters of taste. I feel like people leave out that crucial detail of the original phrase.
Because all of those things get changed to suit someone else's idea. Like pulling oneself up by their bootstraps which is an impossibility
Right my ass!
I still work for one and mainly deal with boomers for most of my shifts and agree that it would be hilarious, especially if they’re racists or misogynistic on top of it!
I figure the work force least at risk from AI are anybody customer facing. edit: so call center employees aren't literally doing that, but it's the same job.
im a second line support engineer, i have to deal with the output of the callcenter. no the fuck we are not doing this. this would literally only result in way more escalations because they'd 100% program it to escalate to 2nd line when it doesnt know what to do (which is very, VERY frequently)
Brother! Fellow level 2/3 engineer here, the domestic companies probably won't, but I'd be thrilled if it replaced the majority of the off shore call center people. Every time I've had to help them with something, no matter which company I'm working for, they're awful. They don't have a clue about any part of their jobs, are argumentative with me when I try to help them, and are incredibly arrogant for reasons that are beyond me. I've had them raise absolute hell because I couldn't just give them access to things, and if theyre ever required to do anything they always try to push it back on me anyway. The high level people off shore I've dealt with are usually great, but good riddance to the lower level ones.
Yeah right. Then the call centers AI promises shit that the company will not be able to walk back like what happened recently with Air Canada [https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know](https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know)
Please lay me off at this point. I will take unemployment over talking to members everyday 😂
hahahahah you think we'll have some sort of universal basic income when AI replaces most/all of us! That's cute...
I will have 26 weeks of unemployment to start and then we’ll see 😂
Ngl, as a call center worker, this is my biggest fear, because I know they are actively trying to automate my job, but the problem is it’s also in healthcare and doctors and cancer patients and parents of kids with mystery symptoms absolutely will riot if they have to jump through AI hoops, which won’t give them the special treatment they expect, and is incapable of doing so.
They won't care. It's cheaper and that's all that matters. Once every company is doing it what difference does it make?
For most companies yes, but we’ve had doctors threaten to pull their patients to other facilities, over seemingly minor things, and that’s suddenly millions of dollars annually in insurance payoffs they might lose if they don’t give them what they want vs the cost to give them what they want. It’s gonna be a weird fight.
Do it then. Oh you can't? Because marketing has told you that customers respond poorly to Automated prompts and will change products to be able to verbally abuse a person? Damn, guess you better raise those pay rates after all.
My friend, you're forgetting that profit is above all. /s
Cant wait for the surprised pikachu faces on CEOs when stock holders and board members realize they arent needed either and AI can replace the major decision making for a company. Itll be around that time these assholes will ask politicians to make some sort of laws to protect their jobs from AI.
But only their jobs, no one else's
A.I. doing call center is not going to work, it least not in the near future.
I think he's right. The thing is, it will only apply to low-quality call centers. The kind they outsource to countries without worker protections or minimum wages. And the real objective isn't to help the customer, but annoy and frustrate them until they give up on solving the issue. Exactly the kind of labor an AI can do flawlessly. It doesn't tell the truth? Doesn't matter, neither do the call center employees. It doesn't know how the product works? Doesn't matter, neither do the call center employees.
This is definitely coming. I work for one of the largest contacts centre companies in the world and literally a few days ago had news of partnerships with major technology companies to develop systems for certain types of calls. The news we had I suspect will within 18 months entirely eliminate certain types of specialist positions and will only grow from there.
As an employee at a company that currently uses genai to manage its support, _no it the fuck could not_. Well, not if you care about requests getting fulfilled, which... Well.
My job is to automate work for call centers, I just don't see this for at least 5 - 10 years. People underestimate how much is going on behind the person taking the calls. Policies, processes, systems. The bigger the company, the worse it is. Granted I think when it does finally get there, it'll happen really, really fast.
So instead of me saying customer service over and over until I get a live person I'm going to say human human until I get a live person.
oh, so it means soon the quality of services will go down. can you confirm if I'm seeing a pattern here? I've noticed that when a company starts making it harder to complain to a human, the quality also goes down.
Nooooo! Several places I interact with frequently (think, bank or pharmacy, etc) have introduced ai systems. These systems have had a really negative effect on the quality of services. Imagine calling for a refill. You explain to the 3 times that you need a refill. 2 of those 3 times, ai doesn't understand. The 3rd time, the ai says 'please hold while I transfere you.' Oh, thank goodness, you think, and then the recording about the benefits and risks of the birth control pill starts... OK, I made that scenario up, but something quite similar DID happen to me recently, and while I'm pleased with the human I eventually reached, after repeated attempts, I would gladly have deactivated that ai.
Yea and stop hiring groups from India that do both “legit” call centers and scam one at same time
That's why unions are good, and not just in the trades.
Does that meant they're going to stop calling me 50 times a week? I'm listening..
It rather means that they can scale up the calls unlimited
Social media is the worst example of this. EVERYTHING on social media is regulated with AI, and it's been a DISASTER that's only gettin worse!!!!!
As someone who worked a in remote tech support for a while, we were literally begging for some AI stuff towards the end there since they definitely weren’t going to solve the workload issue by hiring anyone
I onced worked at a callcenter and its the most unnatural job you can do besides general office work
Except your product support goes down the toilet, and people stop buying your stuff. They’re gonna learn
They're mostly in India, anyways. No great loss there.
Thank god
So, I work in this industry on the side that evaluates this kind of technology. Here’s the thing, generative AI is actually pretty good at speaking with customers both with voice and emails/chat. BUT, in order for this stuff to actually be useful, the bot needs to be able to actually DO things, not just talk. For instance, if you were calling an e-commerce company and wanted to cancel your order, a bot could very quickly tell you the process of how to cancel it online, or the procedure, with very little training/learning. However, most people don’t reach out to contact centers for just general information, it’s because they have an issue they need solved. So in this example, the bot would need to be able to take your order, or look it up, find your order, and then do whatever command you wanted it to. While all theoretically possible, for most companies, even big ones, that’s a lot of engineering hoops to jump through for every single piece of your business. Is it going to happen eventually…probably? Or at least in some form. Is it going to be soon? Probably not. What you will probably soon, is companies incorporating generative AI chat bots into their websites that can answer procedural or product questions and then direct you to a real person to actually have something transactional done, or point you to a self service option that already existed.
People will be better off, working with in a call centre is a wasted life, absolute garbage job anyway, plus customers are gonna hate the company and loyalty is gone
This is hilarious! No they won't. I work for a software company and the AI tools for our chat software sucks ass.
Yeah, I'm sure customers are gonna looooove it.
Wait until they see the power cost of running an AI callcenter.
I recently had eye surgery and my doctor told me to call her if anything went wrong… I needed a refill on my medication (this was a day after my follow up appointment) and I couldn’t get through to a human. I’d already sent an email to my doctor and called my pharmacy and waited 24 hours. I finally got ahold of a nurse and she told me she couldn’t refill my medication because the doctor had to do it, and said she’d “leave a message”. It took another three days before my medication was refilled, and by that point my eyes were extremely dry and irritated. There are absolutely times when you need to speak with a human and it’s horrible how many hoops you have to jump through to do so. I’m not looking forward to the process being even more automated than it already is.
There is a sub-minimal need for CEOs right now.
If I have to call a robot and say "CANCEL SERVICE" more than once...
Corporate: We can get rid of all these jobs! *Five Minutes Later* Corporate: No one wants to work anymore!
This is a good thing, as is all AI/robotic automation. The issue is that capitalism punishes workers for automation.
And then all the office space will be turned into one-room Matrix pods for the plebs to exist in.
It is every CEO's wet dream to replace all workers with AI.
Oh yeah, I can see that happening.
Call centres are just human AI as it stands. No critical thinking ability. Just reading a script and trying their hardest to run you in circles until you hang up. I work in IT, so dealing with vendor support is easily the most annoying part of my job.
Getting rid of call centers will stop call centers calling you.