Replacing the Agent?
In the March 10th issue of The Economist, an article in the Technology Quarterly section discussed the sue of "chatbot" technology to automate the handling of customer calls.
In Call and Response, the article reviews the use of automated systems that help evaluate a job candidate’s pronunciation, grammar, and comprehension. It then moves into a discussion of how these chatbots might replace the human agent.
We’re certainly big fans of technology. In fact, our clients have been able to reduce significant administrative time using our test delivery system that can automate hiring workflows based on business rules. In addition, just being able to pre-qualify thousands of job candidates against an objective, automated, and predictive model has delivered impressive return on investments to our clients. Two years ago, we heard from the Site Director of a well known video game system manufacturer. She described how she had reduced her staffing levels by 50 percent by applying technology at critical points in the customer experience.
Will technology ultimately replace the agent representative? Probably not. We’ll continue to see the shifting of simple, low variance calls to technology based solutions(just like those calls have also moved off-shore). What do you think?