Technology

It's already in the works. We leverage genrative AI via a chat bot in our internal ticketing system for ticket deflection and we're currently rolling out a similar feature for external customers as well. This goes well beyond simply linking high level FAQs. The bot asks a series of questions based on the issue and goes through the same line of questions our service desk reps ask to help diagnose and resolve the issue. And if they go through the entire T1 process within a minute or so and don't have an answer, it creates a ticket for the appropriate team based off of whatever platform, app, or website the issue is in regards to.

It's crazy scalable and has allowed multiple teams to shift focus towards more project oriented work. Without it we probably would have hired more service desk reps as the company grew

We still get some internal customers that just mindlessly click through it or slack us directly but that's the joy of IT.

I know this isn't a common takeaway, but I'm all for it.

The current state of call centers is EXCRUCIATINGLY painful for consumers and only exists in the form it does to commodify US for the company. We tolerate the shit experience of call centers, so companies don't need to pay more money to give us a better experience. That's why they exist, the only reason. If firing them all and turning them into AI makes the experience even SLIGHTLY less painful than calling your local public assistance help line, I'm all for it. If I can bypass 4 separate phone tree selection menus with 3 minutes of wait time with the crackling loud wait music between being passed around departments, I'm all for it. These are shit dead end jobs with no upside whatsoever.

I work for a company that is “all in” on AI. And offshoring. But AI is unlikely to provide second or third level support for complex and poorly documented software that operates at the intersection of legislation and rule making.

Add to that, customers who are licensed in their field but cannot comprehend that software implementation of paper forms requires the same inputs generally, much less explain their objective…

Also, the implementations I’ve been presented with as a consumer have been hot garbage.

The front line folks who exist primarily so customers can yell at someone might be in trouble. But companies who put their people in that position are shit anyway.

Great so customer service will soon become 10x worse.

It's about damn time.

Of all the things that should decimate call centers...