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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

#81

Post by aahhahahaaa »

mysterydip wrote: post #77
cashew_nuts wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Created an account just to comment on this. I design, implement and support contact centers for a living (think Avaya, Cisco, etc..). For the past five years, we've been preparing ourselves through education and training for this omnichannel take over of voice. While other channels have taken some of the voice pie, it's not nearly as significant as those of us in this field thought it would. I've created chat bots, I…

Instead of blaming the customer for not being able to navigate properly, maybe the website should be built more intuitively?

Computer literacy is often vastly overrated, especially by people in tech.

>In total, across the OECD countries, 26% of adults were unable to use a computer.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/

I've worked for companies with large call centers, and anecdotally I don't have a single doubt about it. To close this gap computers need to be easier to use... these people aren't even at a skill level where they can reach the web.

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

#82

Post by gcbw3 »

mysterydip wrote: post #77
cashew_nuts wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Created an account just to comment on this. I design, implement and support contact centers for a living (think Avaya, Cisco, etc..). For the past five years, we've been preparing ourselves through education and training for this omnichannel take over of voice. While other channels have taken some of the voice pie, it's not nearly as significant as those of us in this field thought it would. I've created chat bots, I…

Instead of blaming the customer for not being able to navigate properly, maybe the website should be built more intuitively?

Google is the new IBM.

Saying to your boss that the VP of something is incompetent and made a crappy site will get you fired. Saying there's this new Tech at google coded by god himself will get you a new cost-center and a promotion.

For the company, it will turn out as nice as it turned out to all those places renting mainframe contracts well into the 2000s.

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

#84

Post by importantbrian »

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…

I have some experience in this area and the volume of these kinds of calls in a typical call center is substantial. Especially if your customer demographic is older.

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

#85

Post by berdario »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #74
Scoundreller wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t stop them from including crap in their invoices now that there’s no printing cost. Then there’s the emails saying: “your bill is ready”, but you gotta login to see what it is and open a PDF. Paper is more convenient.

Or do it like PayPal: 'PayPal news and your transactions' - 'to view your transactions, please log in on the site. Additionally, here's a bunch of commercial spam.'

That's infuriating, especially because you get that email even if you haven't made transactions on Paypal in months

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

#86

Post by cuddlybacon »

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #81
mysterydip wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of blaming the customer for not being able to navigate properly, maybe the website should be built more intuitively?

Computer literacy is often vastly overrated, especially by people in tech. >In total, across the OECD countries, 26% of adults were unable to use a computer. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ I've worked for companies with large call centers, and anecdotally I don't have a single doubt about it. To close this gap computers need to be easier to use... these people aren't even at a skill level whe…

Yeah. Computers have a pretty high skill floor and if you aren't using them enough to stay above that level, you will stop using them entirely and your skills will degrade to zero.

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

#87

Post by lumost »

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.

Not going to lie, as a tech savy software engineer I often just phone telco's.

Most of the time I'm calling because my internet is down and I can't go to the website. Or I'm calling because I forgot my password for a website used once every N years.

90% of the time I'm calling, I wouldn't expect the website to have the information I need. Looking at Comcast's website I'm not inclined to look around and find out.

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

#88

Post by strin »

cashew_nuts wrote: post #75
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…

Created an account just to comment on this. I design, implement and support contact centers for a living (think Avaya, Cisco, etc..). For the past five years, we've been preparing ourselves through education and training for this omnichannel take over of voice. While other channels have taken some of the voice pie, it's not nearly as significant as those of us in this field thought it would. I've created chat bots, I…

> Regardless, leaders and technology evangelists in this field still preach that by 2025, the overall percentage of the pie for voice will end up being about 15%.

What data points is this prediction based on?

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

#89

Post by MarkSweep »

Bjartr wrote: post #56
Scoundreller wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft has a couple of newsletters that you can’t unsubscribe from unless you cancel the thing they are related to. For example, Windows 10 insiders, dec essentials, and I think some Azure thing. It’s really annoying.

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

#90

Post by StangeStars »

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…

Just be aware that your calls are most likely recorded. Some companies even have voice analytics systems in place, which will go through all recording and do a sentiment analysis. This is used for quality and monitoring purposes. But you can always do a GDPR request to get your recordings deleted.
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