Artificial Intelligence: Help or Threat?

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RISE OF THE MACHINES...

ARE WE REACHING A BREAKING POINT, WHERE OUR LABOUR FORCE WILL ULTIMATELY BE RENDERED OBSOLETE?

One of the biggest concerns as it relates to the effect of AI, is how it’ll impact actual human employees. Are we reaching a breaking point, where our labour force will ultimately be rendered obsolete?

IFS’s recent study explores that notion in some depth, asking respondents their thoughts on a variety of topics related to AI and the labour force. Survey respondents were very conflicted in the views as to whether AI would replace agents, with 30% agreeing to some extent that this would be the case, with 45% strongly disagreeing. More than half of the respondents from large 200+ seat contact centres felt that AI would replace human agents, with those in small and medium operations feeling that this would not be the case. More unanimity was found when the question was asked as to whether AI would support human agents, with 85% agreeing or strongly agreeing.

There was agreement across all size bands that this would be the most likely outcome, reducing risk, speeding up responses and providing customers with higher quality resolutions. 65% disagreed or strongly disagreed that AI would be irrelevant to their contact centre, with general agreement that AI will affect contact centres of all sizes.

SELF-SERVICE

THE UPTAKE IN WEB SELF-SERVICE SUGGESTS THAT CUSTOMERS WILL ACCEPT NON-HUMAN ASSISTANCE IF IT IS MOST CONVENIENT FOR THEM.

There is a widespread belief amongst businesses that customers would not have a problem with AI if it helped them to resolve their issue as quickly and easily as possible. The uptake in web self-service suggests that customers will accept non-human assistance if it is most convenient for them.

There was also a general agreement that older generations would take a lot more persuasion to be happy with AI compared to a younger generation that is already used to dealing with AI in their everyday life (e.g. through smartphones or other virtual assistants in the home). There was also a widespread feeling that AI should not need to be hidden from customers.

Respondents disagree about whether customers will always prefer human interactions, with a fair inclination towards this view. The next question looks at this issue from the perspective of the customer.

In order to gauge the level of acceptance and expectation around fully-automated customer contact, US consumers were asked whether automation or human assistance would be preferable to the customer base in circumstances where the customer effort, time and outcome were exactly the same.

Bearing in mind the rapid advance and uptake in digital channel s, the findings were quite surprising, as it was found that the customer base is currently strongly in favour of speaking to a human employee. Looking at the age group of the customer base, older demographics feel more strongly about human contact, with younger customers most likely to have no preference or to choose to use automation.

This fits in with our research findings that the younger section of the customer base places more value on their time, whereas the older demographic prefers to have its issue resolved first-time by a single employee. Bearing in mind that this question emphasized that the outcome and customer effort/time would be identical in each case, the results show that the customer base at present is not yet at a stage where automation is generally seen as being even on equal terms with human contact, let alone the preferred method of contact with a business.

Further analysis of this data showed that 60% of men preferred to speak with an employee, compared to 51% of women. There was very little difference shown at a socio-economic level.