Workforce Management Featured Article
Call Center Agents In No Danger of Being Replaced by AI Anytime Soon
The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) in the call center can be a prickly one, particularly for agents who believe machine learning and automation will one day replace humans in the contact center. Viewing AI as a threat can be a major disservice for call center agents, however, who can greatly benefit and improve their performance with the help of automation.
Humans play a critical role in the call center, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Research from SoftwareAdvice indicates that 63 percent of callers over the age of 35 would prefer to speak to a human rather than a machine. AI and automation certainly have their place when it comes to answering simple queries and routing calls based on standard rules and logic. When more complicated matters arise, however, AI isn’t developed enough yet to handle those complexities, ensuring humans will retain a prominent space in the call center for the time being.
Another interesting factor in the use and growth of AI is cost, since AI is fairly expensive to implement. And even once implemented, machines must still be programmed with the proper algorithms to get their jobs done correctly, and that takes time as well as the human knowledge and logic necessary to parse and categorize large sets of data. For SMBs, dedicating those resources to training AI just isn’t practical or economically feasible. Of course large companies like Facebook (News - Alert) and Amazon have dedicated contractors working around the clock to improve their AI, but the key here is that they need human workers to accomplish this task.
The best use of AI in the call center today is when it serves to help and augment human agents. AI can bring up call history, background information and other valuable data on the fly to aid agents when dealing with specific callers. It can also be useful for tracking, call routing, and documenting and logging the details of certain types of calls, all with the end goal of improving overall call center productivity and efficiency.
As of now, AI should be viewed as an enhancement and complement to human call center agents. It can be valuable for certain companies in particular scenarios, and is certainly an important tool for improving call center operations. But it is in no way poised to replace human call center agents and whether it ever will be remains to be seen.
Edited by Maurice Nagle