Real-time voice modification tech seeks to reduce stress in Japanese call center staff.
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New “emotion-canceling” AI tech aims to shield call workers from angry customers
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I can't see any way not being able to hear a customer's anger and frustration could go wrong! /s
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I'm imagining the caller's AI-altered voice sounding like that ubiquitous TikTok text-to-voice reader, with its singsong feminine voice. I don't know if it's all that much better to be called horrible names cheerfully or angrily.
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Don’t assume the customer is right. Often they aren’t. They call people screaming about something right in front of them.
Example: a teammate of mine made a scene on a group call with Cisco because she couldn’t get into the VPN. Went on a tangent about how the products never work and it’s all “ridiculous” and “stupid” and “they need to get their act together.” She had been ignoring the Duo approval pop up on her company issued phone. When it was explained to her, she further doubled down and said it was “too confusing.” We had been trained on it. Twice. Then it became a line about how “things never used to be this hard.” Welcome to basic 2FA!
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Tell me you've never worked customer service without saying you've never worked customer service.
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How about you just tell them to call back when they've calmed down and hangup? That seems to be a lot cheaper.
Plenty of customers are entitled twats who get their way by yelling and screaming more often then not, so they keep doing it and it's often not even deserved. They're just assholes.
Plenty of customers are entitled twats who get their way by yelling and screaming more often then not, so they keep doing it and it's often not even deserved. They're just assholes.
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Better yet, how about forcing the decision makers who tend to be responsible for creating customer anger to work customer support? Too many of them either never had to work in such a position or haven't worked in such a position for so long that they forgot what dealing with customers entails.
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I do call center implementations for a living, and I 100% support this idea. Modern call centers already are doing live sentiment analysis on calls, so a CSR can just look at the screen and see "upset customer" as the status without having to deal with the stress of being yelled at.
Being a CSR is a shit job, and no matter how polite you are, or how good the overall organization is, you're going to get yelled at by an angry customer, eventually. I've been pretty hot under the collar a decent number of times when calling in, and I've taken to saying up front when I know I can't sound calm: "I'm mad, but I'm not mad at you, I know you're trying to do your job." In an attempt to take the bite out of my voice.
So yah, good on them for trying to make a CSR's job a little less stressful.
Being a CSR is a shit job, and no matter how polite you are, or how good the overall organization is, you're going to get yelled at by an angry customer, eventually. I've been pretty hot under the collar a decent number of times when calling in, and I've taken to saying up front when I know I can't sound calm: "I'm mad, but I'm not mad at you, I know you're trying to do your job." In an attempt to take the bite out of my voice.
So yah, good on them for trying to make a CSR's job a little less stressful.
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"The customer is always right" is one of the phrases where a significant portion got removed and the meaning changed entirely. The full quote is "When it comes to matters of taste, the customer is always right", meaning that as a salesperson you're not supposed to judge what the customer buys.
Customers are often wrong, but having spent my fair share of time on both sides of customer support, lots of them are just fed up with how companies treat customer support as an afterthought. Plenty of irrational rage-addicts, but plenty of otherwise normal folks who just want a solution, not a phone tree.
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I have an aunt who looks for any opportunity to "show her ass", figuratively speaking. She sees every public-facing employee as a target to unload on. I hate the woman.
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train_wreck
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I think the comment was directed more towards the business managers/owners, not the CS staff. And FWIW i agree with it. A disproportionate level of angry calls suggests that there are more significant problems than just “angry dumb user”.
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They should instead do the already established way to deal with customers we do in the west. Most, if not all, companies have no phone support, either a bot that can only search irrelevant faqs for hits on any word you typed, or an email you send with a wish attached, hoping for the best.
Even now, on the register only and sunseting social media platforms, most companies only care if a twitter or fb complaint with them tagged reaches more than 10 likes or similar....
"Computer says no" is the reality nowdays, Little Britain knew it all along... the sarcasm of lack of empathy is the times we live.
Even now, on the register only and sunseting social media platforms, most companies only care if a twitter or fb complaint with them tagged reaches more than 10 likes or similar....
"Computer says no" is the reality nowdays, Little Britain knew it all along... the sarcasm of lack of empathy is the times we live.
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When I saw the headline about AI and call centers, I thought it was going to be on this recent development:
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Yeah, silencing frustrated customers. That'll definitely help resolve the problem. People get angry when they feel they aren't heard so the solution is to literally silence their voice?? It'll just send them into a further rage fit and they'll hang up the phone.
Which I suppose means it's working by design. This can cut support costs by effectively refusing support to a certain set of users. Will that actually be a net benefit for anyone using this technology? Probably not but bean counters love to make B2B deals that they think will save them money but ultimately cost a lot more.
I would describe the current wave of AI sales as, "it's the next big thing and I don't do much in my job but make deals, and arrange numbers, if I make this deal, it'll solve a problem!"
Which I suppose means it's working by design. This can cut support costs by effectively refusing support to a certain set of users. Will that actually be a net benefit for anyone using this technology? Probably not but bean counters love to make B2B deals that they think will save them money but ultimately cost a lot more.
I would describe the current wave of AI sales as, "it's the next big thing and I don't do much in my job but make deals, and arrange numbers, if I make this deal, it'll solve a problem!"
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And those normal folks should, after decades, realize that there is a difference between calling a support desk and approaching a counter at Marshall Field & Co.
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Just to be clear: downvoted, because the last section of the article discusses it in more detail and this comment adds nothing to that discussion.
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One of the things I was trained on when I was a young pup in tech - working for a regional ISP that had good training - was call control and enabling the customer on the call. Listening helps. Reading through a mandated step by step troubleshooting guide does not.
Call centers are now filled with untrained KB readers and its frustrating as hell to navigate that.
Example:
Me: Hi, I'm still having problems with X. I've rebooted, powered it off, unplugged it for ten minutes, and plugged it back in twice today. Can you help get a replacement RMA started?
Rep: Sorry about your problems with X, we strive to exceed your happiness with X. HEre at X, I'm here to help you solve your problems with X. Can you kindly let me know if you're close to X? Yes, ok please push the reboot button on the back, it's a red button with the label of "Reboot" on it. Can you see this? ...
Me: Did you hear anything I said when we started our conversation?
Call centers are now filled with untrained KB readers and its frustrating as hell to navigate that.
Example:
Me: Hi, I'm still having problems with X. I've rebooted, powered it off, unplugged it for ten minutes, and plugged it back in twice today. Can you help get a replacement RMA started?
Rep: Sorry about your problems with X, we strive to exceed your happiness with X. HEre at X, I'm here to help you solve your problems with X. Can you kindly let me know if you're close to X? Yes, ok please push the reboot button on the back, it's a red button with the label of "Reboot" on it. Can you see this? ...
Me: Did you hear anything I said when we started our conversation?
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Caller (AI) : I cordially invite you to relocate to the materfamilias and provide paternity services.
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I prefer email / ticket support since I can type my exact problem in as much detail as I need to, send it, go do something else until I get a response. As long as the wait time isn't recessive this seems better for both sides.
Even with chat, having to sit for a minute doing nothing while the other person tries to look up something on their computer is a pain.
Even with chat, having to sit for a minute doing nothing while the other person tries to look up something on their computer is a pain.
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Good grief. Going overboard on some entry level call center rep and being unnecessarily abusive is not a human right. People should not expect to be treated poorly at their jobs, period. And no one is “being silenced.”
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I'd like to think that the intent here is valuable - customer service reps get a ton of shit they absolutely do not deserve. I empathize with their mental health greatly.
I've also been in a situation where I've been an extremely frustrated customer (cancelling comcast for example). It's not the reps fault, but as others have noted, it's the underlying corporate behavior that is creating that frustration and it's important for customers to be able to have that feedback get through somewhere. Unfortunately the corporate overlords seem to spend a lot of time insulating themselves from their decisions.
I've also been in a situation where I've been an extremely frustrated customer (cancelling comcast for example). It's not the reps fault, but as others have noted, it's the underlying corporate behavior that is creating that frustration and it's important for customers to be able to have that feedback get through somewhere. Unfortunately the corporate overlords seem to spend a lot of time insulating themselves from their decisions.
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I'm not saying people should go overboard and it's absolutely not a right, and I never said anyone was "being silenced" in a sense of tamping their free speech. I mean literally silent, on the call itself, right then and there. I'm not saying people should be pricks on the phone and CS people get a hugely unfair amount of shit. I'm not being a "customer is always right" boomer and I don't think there was anything that suggested I am. I'm criticizing the solution because trying to shut up angry irrational people doesn't usually shut them up
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Touché.
You are, of course, correct.
The irony is that we’ve built our entire society around the mistaken belief that people are rational, but hey.
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train_wreck
Ars Scholae Palatinae
No, it’s the
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Modifying the customer's voice is probably a step too far, but also not enough if it doesn't change any words. It would probably be "better" to just auto-mute the customer with an automated warning message about verbal abuse when they cross a threshold of anger/abusive words (and maybe have a "please call back when you've calmed down" message on the third strike in a single call). I'm sure that would just piss customers off more but it is not acceptable to abuse people on the phone just because they work for a shitty company (I've worked in multiple call centers...).
At the same time, companies need to stop fucking around with automated phone systems that basically make it impossible to reach an actual person (if I'm to the point of having to call a company I'm pretty fucking certain nothing in their automated system can help me).
At the same time, companies need to stop fucking around with automated phone systems that basically make it impossible to reach an actual person (if I'm to the point of having to call a company I'm pretty fucking certain nothing in their automated system can help me).
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Sure, but 9 times out of 10 you still get back a "do the needful" response with zero indication the rep actually read your ticket or understood it. It's like they're required to start at zero and step through 1 - 10 steps every time for everything even if you did 1-7, step 8 is irrelevant to you and step 9 is wrong for your environment / how you have it configured.
If you deviate from that path then they just don't get it.
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I think this will work. The customer service rep can choose to talk to
Curly from the Three Stooges,
Betty Boop, or
Groot
Curly from the Three Stooges,
Betty Boop, or
Groot
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