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A.I. – Determined Customer Service Strives for the Human Touch

single datingFor decades, consumers have loathed the implementation of automation in the realm of customer service. But, at last, it seems computer technology is making the experience better, not worse. And by better, we mean a lot better.

As reported earlier this month, companies small and large are embracing a new approach to customer service. In short, data is used to match callers to representatives with a track record of successfully helping customers with similar data profiles. All the while, the personal data – which includes everything from purchasing history to census records – is never made available to the reps themselves, putting most privacy advocates at ease.

Companies providing this service are vying to become the industry standard, each tweaking the technology to best help businesses manage their customer relationships. The call center software provider Five9, for example, puts as much emphasis on boosting productivity through efficient customer-rep connections as it does ensuring the connections are reliably optimized in the first place. In an era when businesses big and small are looking for ways to cut costs and improve operations simultaneously, such additional points of focus are warmly welcomed.

While previously mentioned privacy concerns over personal information are unlikely to go away anytime soon, they aren’t the only pressing issue involved in the implementation of optimized call center software. The other is job creation. The technology offered by Five9 and similar companies stands to alter the way in which operations are managed in any situation where someone seeks assistance. Consequently, it has the potential to transform the job market over the next 20 years. In doing so it may turn out to be the exception to the rule regarding the replacement of human employees with artificial intelligence.

Whether it’s a for-profit, nonprofit, government agency, hospital, law firm, or university, it’s in an entity’s best interest to streamline the connections between the public and themselves. In virtually every example of poor customer service in the past, the problem boiled down to cost-effectiveness; the entity didn’t have the necessary resources to allocate towards efficient and satisfactory correspondence. The result was agonizingly long hold times, transfers from one robot to another, and ultimately dismay in the minds of most citizens and consumers attempting to reach out to agencies and businesses.

With optimized customer service aimed at matching callers with the “right” rep, these entities are at last able to provide quality assistance at an affordable price. This could mean a wave of service-based employment opportunities on the horizon, where virtually every operating entity on the planet manages a stable of service reps thanks to software which automatically connects them to callers. This, in turn, can create a dynamo of business activity, public sector progress, and ultimately an economy with endurance for decades to come.

It may sound like pie-in-the-sky expectations, but in parts of the world where service-based ventures are blooming and manufacturing is all but a dried out memory, the idea of call centers becoming the standard form of employment is not beyond imagination. With technology such as that provided by companies like Five9, it’s never been more possible.

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