I just say "f king human please" and AI seems to understand that pretty well in most cases.
That exact situation is what the article is about. The part truncated from the article title on HN is "...The human is told what to say by the bot".
Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
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Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#12I'm sure the telcos have statistics to validate this system, but it seems to completely oppose my own personal experiences.
I have never phoned customer support to:
- View my account details (available online)
- Find out about new plans and promos (available online)
- Pay my bill (available online)
- etc (available online)
I have only phoned customer support to:
- Negotiate a better rate (requires a human)
- Argue about excess charges on my bill (requires a human)
- Get put on a off-market plan (ie loyalty, retention, etc -- requires a human)
I guess if there really are that many people phoning support with trivial questions, a voice assistant will free up the phone line for people who actually need a human. I suspect it won't, as they'll reduce the number of support employees accordingly.
Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#13I'm not a customer support agent but I took a basic customer support training at my previous company to get better at communication.
If I remembered anything from the education it's this:
You have to address the customer's emotional needs before addressing the customer's business need.
If you don't you end up with an unhappy customer who had his problem solved. I don't see an AI satisfying my emotional needs any time soon.
Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#14I'm sure the telcos have statistics to validate this system, but it seems to completely oppose my own personal experiences. I have never phoned customer support to: - View my account details (available online) - Find out about new plans and promos (available online) - Pay my bill (available online) - etc (available online) I have only phoned customer support to: - Negotiate a better rate (requires a human) - Argue ab…
Every thing you listed that requires a human also results in them making less money.
It's no coincidence that these systems make getting to those points harder and harder.
Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#15Rather than effort into phone bits, can we just put effort into letting you do everything from their website? A well designed service doesn't let phone agents do anything the customer couldn't do themselves. It is literally called customer support , because they help you do the things you want to do, rather than doing it for you.
Their goal is not to support you nor to help you solve problems. Their goal is to extract a larger share of wallet. They’re automating the parts that will not impact their ability to upsell, the rest of it will go to humans who use all sorts of psychological tricks to manipulate you into paying more.
Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#16I could see regulations go the other way: tech companies will be forced to hire quotas of customer service reps to offset the jobs they keep trying to displace. More specifically, above certain thresholds of revenue and customers for a digital service, you need X number of customer service employees.
This would be a great benefit to most since it creates jobs and gives us real humans to speak with. Of course, it would increase prices of things, but depending by how much (I'm sure there's a sweet spot), it may be worth it for the better customer service.
Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#17Rather than effort into phone bits, can we just put effort into letting you do everything from their website? A well designed service doesn't let phone agents do anything the customer couldn't do themselves. It is literally called customer support , because they help you do the things you want to do, rather than doing it for you.
I used to be with a Canadian MVNO who offer zero phone support agents (Public Mobile). Everything is done online.
As such, their online portal offers actions typically requiring a phone call, such as phone number porting, SIM unlocking, choosing a new number/region, and cancelling your account.
Aside: I once accidentally ported the wrong number over since autofill screwed up the input box (444 from my personal 444-4444 line and 5555 from my work line 555-5555). Within 5 minutes I my phone would ring 444-5555. I feel bad for the owner of that number, because it was assigned to me without any authentication whatsoever. Really put the 2FA attacks into perspective.
Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#18I've worked for large and small companies, and I've never understood the outsourcing/robot-ting of your phone customer care people. First and sometimes last line of defense in gaining or keeping a customer.
Best Buy was probably the most egregious example of this.
Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#19I'm sure the telcos have statistics to validate this system, but it seems to completely oppose my own personal experiences. I have never phoned customer support to: - View my account details (available online) - Find out about new plans and promos (available online) - Pay my bill (available online) - etc (available online) I have only phoned customer support to: - Negotiate a better rate (requires a human) - Argue ab…
If you're somehow locked out of your account you usually have to call to do all of those things. There's also still people who don't use the internet much, if at all.
Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls
#20I just say "f king human please" and AI seems to understand that pretty well in most cases.
That exact situation is what the article is about. The part truncated from the article title on HN is "...The human is told what to say by the bot".
We're implementing Manna [1] one little step at a time.