"I'd like to speak with your human"

I was catching up on my morning AI news and came across an article discussing how the EU is considering a mandate to ensure that customer service callers are guaranteed the right to speak to a human agent.

Love that; yes please! While we are at it, let’s make the mandate include a provision to ensure that those calling customer service hotlines are human and act humanely as well. And I think AI can help with that for sure.

Statistically speaking, we don’t call customer service because we are thrilled with the quality of the goods or services we’ve received in exchange for payment. Most callers are already emotionally charged, and then they experience this:

• “Please press 1 for customer service”
• “Now please enter your pin”
• “Please listen carefully, as our menu has changed…”
• “Your current wait time is, two days…” would you like to hold?

I find it humorous that we want to mandate access to humans, and not to effective and efficient customer service to help the humans on both ends of the call.

For once I’d love the ability to securely and reliably authenticate my identity (we’ll talk about that in another post), and get the specific answer to my question, or resolving the problem in one call. I’m not saying that I always must get what I want; but we should always resolve issues as quickly and efficiently as possible.?

Imagine if you will how awesome it would be to equip every customer service representative access to GenAI tools that can help them answer the specific and unique question the caller poses?

Imagine using GenAI and humans such that when the human engages with the caller, the problem is efficiently and effectively resolved, rather than escalated for resolution.

I’m 100% for access to humans. I’m also 100% for making their customer representative work, and the experience of the caller less stressful than it already is, and infinitely more productive than answering twenty questions every single time the call is sent to another customer service agent or supervisor (No, I’m not a David or Brad), and still go nowhere fast.

Having run and operated customer service centers in several industries, I’d love nothing more than to begin to solve the specific and unique customer problem the second an upset customer call connects to the center via voice, chat or app. This is one of those areas where AI can make immediate and substantial impact on both sides of the call.?

I’m neither an advocate for the movement of “let’s use AI to replace all humans”, nor fostering or subscribing to talking points driven panic because "artificial intelligence is going to replace us all”.

In my opinion:

• AI has crossed the chasm and will continue to be used in business for years to come. That toothpaste is not going back in the tube.
• AI should be actively regulated and industry and users should be actively engaged in this process.
• AI can improve both the quality of service and quality of life around the most tedious and stressful functions of the workforce.

Customer service is just one of hundreds of examples we can consider. We need to actively work from a place of logic and reason; not hype and perhaps fear. A binary debate at this stage is just silly.?

We know the optimum approach is between the extremes of “all human”, and “all AI”. More AI does not always equate or result in less humans. More AI can mean “better equipped” humans.

What do you think?

Gartner Rhys Fisher Fuel For Thought, LLC CX Today

A solid article by Rhys Fisher - read it below.

https://www.cxtoday.com/contact-centre/by-2028-the-eu-will-mandate-the-right-to-talk-to-a-human-in-customer-service-predicts-gartner/