Call Recording Featured Article

One of the biggest questions on the lips of the customer support industry today is, how automated will the industry become, and will it replace human agents? There are mixed opinions on the topic.

While it’s true that the customer experience is becoming more automated thanks to artificial-intelligence-enabled “chat bots” and “virtual assistants” being offered by the largest tech companies – Apple’s Siri, Android’s Google (News - Alert) Now, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Echo (Alexa) all come to mind – it’s also true that there is a limit to what AI can do, and it’s likely that human agents will be necessary for a long time to come.

John Paul Palpallatoc, a senior executive at Accenture (News - Alert), recently told Philippines’ news source The Standard that the 373,000 business process outsourcing (BPO) professionals employed by Accenture across 120 countries, including 45,000 in the Philippines, can breathe easy for now.

“Robots may displace people in the sense they are doing some menial tasks, but people will be doing the high level tasks in customer engagement.  It is not really a replacement, but an addition, complementary of the tasks that we have,” said Palpallatoc.

While more contact center organizations are turning to chat bots and artificial intelligence, there are many other technological changes on the horizon that companies need to be prepared to face.

“The acceleration and speed of technology changes are becoming more rapid. Some of the companies are having a digital culture shock, because there are a lot of changes that are happening at this time.  You talk about mobile apps, internet of things, digital, cloud, security and other things,” said Palpallatoc during a news briefing at Accenture’s facility at Robinsons Cybergate Tower 1 in Mandaluyong City.

While the use of artificial intelligence systems has increased exponentially in the U.S., for customer support, it’s still limited to taking care of routine and easy requests that can be handled by today’s chat bots. Some customer support companies are combining chat bots with human intelligence, so humans can still drive – and personalize – the conversation but use artificial intelligence to help automate some time-consuming and repetitive tasks.

One of the trends pointed out by Palpallatoc in his talk is the new focus on people, and serving people still takes human agents.

“In 2016, we are focusing more on people as well,” he said. “Based on the research we have done, we believe that the enterprises and the companies that focus on people and enable them to make use the digital wave will be successful.”

In other words, artificial intelligence can help enhance customer relationships, but with customers expecting more personalization than ever, the human touch is still very necessary. Don’t think of chat bots has replacements for human agents. Instead, think of them as robotic assistants that help make the lives of contact center agents easier and more productive.