Generative AI could soon decimate the call center industry, says CEO

https://lemmy.world/post/14771687

Generative AI could soon decimate the call center industry, says CEO - Lemmy.World

Call centres exist because people can’t get the help they need by searching. Take away call centres, and you’re just making it more difficult for customers.

Uhh they’ve all been outsourced to India for ages now, and they’re effectively useless. You’ll get someone who’s worse than an AI at understanding what you’re asking and cannot deviate from a scrip because they have no training.

I haven’t used one in over a decade, if I have an issue it’s going as an email or a comment on social media.

This has been my experience whenever I’ve phoned support.

We’re experiencing extremely high call volume."

Every hour of every day, because company won’t hire or pay for anything better.

Press 3 to have a representative call you back; You won’t lose your place in line.

Sure. Meanwhile, I get on their website and try their weird “chat” support popup, that somehow takes care of the problem hours before I ever get a call back.

This is why people hate phone support. And why I don’t trust and won’t buy products from companies who only have phone (or “social media” support). Give me a dedicated support email address, or something text-based (live chat, contact form) on website, thanks!

Weird. I’m only looking for phone support when there is no online support, or it doesn’t help, or can’t understand the problem, or there’s no keywords that put it in the right area, or for whatever reason is too “smart” so doesn’t work on iPhone. I don’t trust companies that don’t have call support, because they are more blatantly not supporting their products
Chat>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>phone

> makes a series of confident critical statements

> hasn’t used one in over a decade

You’re right, they’re totally un-outsourcing call centres and India is no longer a hotspot of outsourced call centres.

Gee golly I really need to use them to know that nothing has changed! Not at all like I can hear it everywhere from everyone else.

Why more companies are onshoring customer service

Call quality suffered overseas. Now that companies factor satisfaction and loyalty into the equation, they're onshoring domestic contact center agents.

Liveops

Wow you found a few companies bringing a few roles back, that clearly highlights the current state of the entire industry!

Hey look I can do that too!

news.com.au/…/4be1d00740e7e4355e214ddb281c44bc

ispreview.co.uk/…/vodafone-shift-some-uk-customer…

stuff.co.nz/…/air-new-zealand-outsourcing-some-ca…

paddleyourownkanoo.com/…/american-airlines-slashe…

Fucking muppet.

Do you understand that providing some examples of the opposite doesn’t show “all”? Your goal is supposed to be proving the examples I gave wrong, not adding new examples, because I’m not the one that said “all”. So what we’ve learned today is that different companies are doing different things and that blanket uninformed statements don’t contribute to anything. Cool. You good?

Oh and if you want to use the ampersand for etc you don’t need the t. Ampersand is “e” and “t” together! I hope I’ve helped whatever goal you had in choosing to write “&tc”.

My goal is to show that anyone can post a link, unless you’re going to post some in-depth study that shows categorically that the new norm is companies no longer outsourcing their call centres in favour of domestic ones I will continue to think the default action these days as has been for the past 2 decades now is outsourcing to cheap labour.

I didn’t know who to side with but you’ve switched to a deceptive argument so I’m not giving you thy benefit of thy doubt anymore.

It’s very clear he’s using common English usage of all to mean significant majority, pretending not to understand this and trying to win on semantics makes it seem like you’re an untrustworthy orator.

Can’t even describe how shitty meta support is. I ordered a quest 3 and some additionals, they mailed me everything except the quest and something else I didn’t order. Obvious mix-up, yeah? Well it took 4 different support chats and 6 different “specialists” over a month to actually process a refund, and they were still somehow stuck on the idea that the courier missed a box. An additional box under the same tracking number as another box that was labeled 1 of 1.
Never, and I repeat NEVER, buy directly from most manufacturers. For whatever reason, their customer service on the consumer purchase side always seems to suck. Buy from authorized resellers who care more about the relationship with their customers.
Did… my dad the used car salesman write this? Your post sounds plausible, but… sorry, NO ONE cares about relationships with customers. Every last company is enshittifiable & thus inherently untrustworthy

I have experience on the reseller side of the electronics business. I will tell you that most big resellers (Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, etc) will do more in situations like this than the actual companies themselves. I’ve seen it a lot. Sure, it’s anecdotal evidence, but I’ve also read a ton of complaints over the years on Reddit of similar situations.

These first party manufacturers are manufacturers first and retail shops second (or third) so they put less effort on that side.

This is the one place there’s still hope: an ai could follow a much larger script, and even be helpful. It’s possible