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Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

theregister.com

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Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#51

Post by zaroth »

I had to return rental equipment after canceling FIOS service last month.

A few weeks ago I started getting automated calls from “Alex at Verizon” (obviously a computer) reading a script reminding me that the equipment needs to be returned. The only problem? Sometimes it would call 5 times a day, leaving a new VM every time.

I think it should be illegal to claim to be human, and generally these messages should always be delivered by text message with an option to reply STOP.

On the plus side, I brought the equipment to a UPS store where they scanned the barcode stickers directly into their system, handed me a receipt and an hour later Verizon had emailed confirmation of receipt. I didn’t even need to pack them.

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#52

Post by Lammy »

zaroth wrote: post #51

I had to return rental equipment after canceling FIOS service last month. A few weeks ago I started getting automated calls from “Alex at Verizon” (obviously a computer) reading a script reminding me that the equipment needs to be returned. The only problem? Sometimes it would call 5 times a day, leaving a new VM every time. I think it should be illegal to claim to be human, and generally these messages should always…

It sounds like annoying you with five voicemails a day is what it took to get you to do the return so if you’re complaining about their strategy I doubt they care :p

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#53

Post by CobrastanJorji »

QuercusMax wrote: post #41
jasode wrote: post #2

Google is very clever! They write AI software to play both sides of the customer-service interaction. The company side is this Verizon story of parsing human voices. The customer side is this story: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/8/17332070/google-assistant-... I would hope the Google Cloud speech recognition (used by Verizon) of the fake voice from Google Assistant (used by the phone customer) would have a 100% acc…

100% accuracy is probably too much to hope for, as there will of course be poor-quality phone calls. Of course, maybe Google could encode an alternate data stream inside the generated voice, which would enable perfect transcription. Now I'm imagining a future where robots communicate with each other over audio channels....

What's wrong with that? We've preferred programs communicate with each other in human-parsable formats for decades.

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#54

Post by scarface74 »

sys_64738 wrote: post #45

I don't talk to computers other than to demand a human. I doubt very much I ever will. It's why stuff like Alexa and Siri is doomed to fail. People don't want to communicate that way.

Because you don’t talk to computers it’s doomed to fail?

I on the other hand use Siri all of the time when I need to be hands free or using my Watch.

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#55

Post by badwolf »

abstractbarista wrote: post #22

I noticed these systems typically immediately take you to a human if you start screaming swear words and overall sound enraged. Try it next time! "____! Give me a _______ human you ____! ____!!" This is often followed by a prompt click of the line transferring and sure enough you're in the queue for a real person. Of course, remember to do the opposite with the person. Be polite and respectful with the person on the…

This generally isn't good advice and can result in your call being dropped, marked as "hot," etc...

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#56

Post by Bjartr »

Scoundreller wrote: post #42
canadianwriter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who in a past life worked at a telco..... its insane how common those are. A HUGE part of my job was getting people to use the dang website! They work REALLY REALLY hard to get people to use the website. It's mostly older generations, they refuse to use a website for many of those basic things. A lot of it is an issue of trust, they just don't trust websites.

The problem is, the second they have my email address, they start spamming you. When they have to pay $0.62/message, it cuts down on the crap. I’m a member of a profession where you’re supposed to read all of their comms. Now that they’ve switched to email, they send way more crap that I have to sift through and I can’t block them.

> The problem is, the second they have my email address, they start spamming you.

Being (arguably) legitimate companies, their unsubscribe links actually do work.

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#57

Post by haecceity »

canadianwriter wrote: post #33
KMnO4 wrote: post #12

I'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…

As someone who in a past life worked at a telco..... its insane how common those are. A HUGE part of my job was getting people to use the dang website! They work REALLY REALLY hard to get people to use the website. It's mostly older generations, they refuse to use a website for many of those basic things. A lot of it is an issue of trust, they just don't trust websites.

Websites are hard to use and usually suck. Sometimes you spend an hour looking for something on a website and it tells you to call customer support.

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#58

Post by [deleted] »

canadianwriter wrote: post #33
KMnO4 wrote: post #12

I'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…

As someone who in a past life worked at a telco..... its insane how common those are. A HUGE part of my job was getting people to use the dang website! They work REALLY REALLY hard to get people to use the website. It's mostly older generations, they refuse to use a website for many of those basic things. A lot of it is an issue of trust, they just don't trust websites.

[deleted]

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#59

Post by ethbro »

grahamburger wrote: post #50
tialaramex wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common in Europe (maybe an EU harmonised regulation?) to require that if you can sign up from a web site then you can also cancel from a web site. The one time I've talked to a human to cancel a service, it was Three and it was a pleasant surprise because although their retentions team did end up keeping me I got a huge discount over not only what I was paying before, but compared to the competitor I was leaving…

> to require that if you can sign up from a web site then you can also cancel from a web site. This is unfortunately not a freedom we enjoy in the US. I recently changed my car insurance provider to a much cheaper one bundled with my home insurance. I called to cancel the old one and talked to the rep for like an hour. He didn't even really try to save my account, made a few half-ass efforts but mostly just chatted.…

Short circuit to most contact center retention flowcharts:

"I'm moving overseas for an extended period of time." (Implication: to somewhere you don't offer service)

"Where are you moving?"

"I can't really say."

Turns out, most service providers have an exclusion to their retention metrics, where "customer moving to location we don't offer service" is one of the few reasons to just process their cancellation request.

Re: Verizon has turned to Google Cloud’s Contact Center AI to automate phone calls

#60

Post by zaroth »

Lammy wrote: post #52
zaroth wrote: post #51

I had to return rental equipment after canceling FIOS service last month. A few weeks ago I started getting automated calls from “Alex at Verizon” (obviously a computer) reading a script reminding me that the equipment needs to be returned. The only problem? Sometimes it would call 5 times a day, leaving a new VM every time. I think it should be illegal to claim to be human, and generally these messages should always…

It sounds like annoying you with five voicemails a day is what it took to get you to do the return so if you’re complaining about their strategy I doubt they care :p

No, they give you 30 days to return the equipment at which point they charge you late fees. The calls were totally superfluous.
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