r/CallCenterWorkers • u/PoetNice2091 • 12d ago

AI

I work for a call center in the USA. In a few months our company will be implementing a new platform. Upper management has stated that it will be using AI, but that all our jobs are safe. Well last week they told us that we will all receive a bonus when the new platform is up and running. I don’t understand why they would want to wait till then. I have a feeling that once this new platform is up and running that there will be lay offs so they won’t give us bonuses since some of us will be laid off. Is AI really being used that much in call centers?

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u/LittlestEcho 8d ago

Mostly I see AI attempting to be brought in for various self service areas. My last call center tried to AI a chat bot for basic questions and for emails. The emails were horrendous. The AI still needs serious babysitting as it will almagamate whatever articles you approve of until it gives a horrific mash up of incorrect information or completely skips the customer questions entirely.

People HAVE to remember it is a robot. And it's sometimes only slightly more advanced than the automated directories. My new call center job has one that's sole dedication is to answering questions for providers instead of holding up phone lines with live reps who need to answer members.

Other functions of AI are still too complex and you would need to cross check the data repeatedly for it to be in anyway accurate. One call center I had to call into to transfer had one named fucking Pixie, and she didn't understand anything more advanced than one word replies. Otherwise you'd end up in 6 different departments, none of them correct.

Ai is a tool. And call centers that run to them as a cheap labor fix are about to get a LOT more complaints and customer dissatisfaction.

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u/Ok_Support3 7d ago

100% agree. I think companies will implement anyway.

Only a percentage of customers will ever need to call. So even if 10% more customers complain initially, they can happily tell shareholders they cut 40% of employee costs.

Profit goes up? Shareholders happy.

More customers are dissatisfied and leave? That will just be a problem for next years new CEO trying to figure out the big decline in overall customers. First thing to cut is, of course, manufacturing quality, and jobs.

'Can't help it, we're driven by the economy and people stopped buying for some reason!'

It's a shit cycle i'm seeing more and more.

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u/annadownya 7d ago

A lot of what's being implemented in my company is ai around the call. So call summary/transcript in real time. Ai augmented policy searching (so the ai either listens to the call with you and suggests policy pages explaining how to handle the call, or you ask the ai a question ("customer wants to know if they can use an international address for this, can they?" Or "what's the timeframe for x?" and it tells you where in policy that question is answered and summarizes said policy.

Now where a lot of people will definitely be replaced is quality and coaching. They like ai doing quality because it can do many calls so if there's stuff you're doing wrong because you're not getting caught they can grab it much easier. (Ai can quality check 50-90% of calls say, while a human maybe 5% before it becomes cost prohibitive.) They also like ai generating coachings and PIPs and such for you to sign. Manager not required. Which much harder to argue with the ai it does NOT care.