"Minsheng Weekly" reporter Yu Haijun.
Cost reduction, efficiency and convenience are the primary factors for them to choose AI customer service. Unlike human agents, AI agents stay all day** and are "energetic."In recent years, with the rapid development of AI technology, more and more merchants have become "hands-off" in customer service, whether it is online shopping platforms, logistics companies, transportation, small and micro loans, investment and financial management, AI customer service has been widely used in all walks of life.
According to the 2023 China Intelligent Customer Service Market Report, the scale of China's intelligent customer service market has reached 66 in 2022800 million yuan, and it is expected that by 2027, the market size is expected to grow to 181300 million yuan.
Intelligent voice technology serves users, which does improve service efficiency and save labor costs to a certain extent, but some businesses use AI customer service to cancel manual customer service, and AI has become a "roadblock" to solve the problem.
For example, "the attitude is sincere, but the answer is not the question", such as "express understanding, but do not mention the solution", the consumer experience is difficult to describe. In particular, mechanical replies and nesting doll-like rhetoric are often complained about by consumers.
A "different" experience
Intelligent customer service is not intelligent, and human customer service is not manual. Wang Zhuo, from Chaoyang, Beijing, often shops online, and recently complained after dialing the customer service of a home appliance product.
Talking about the experience of intelligent customer service, Ma Minghao from Xi'an, Shaanxi Province also deeply agrees: "Whether it is artificial or intelligent, if it can't solve consumer problems, it is not good customer service." Ma Minghao said that now many businesses have used AI customer service, which seems to be full of technology and high-tech, but in fact, the experience is not better than that of manual work. In recent years, AI customer service has almost become the standard configuration of e-commerce platforms, however, in the process of communication, AI customer service either uses fixed speech techniques to give consumers a voice broadcast, which is basically an AI-style standardized response, which is useless except for delaying time. After a conversation, no matter how the consumer complains, the other party is still calm as usual. Wang Zhuo said frankly: "Because the opposite side is a program set by a computer, not a real person, so you have nowhere to get out." Not only that, what makes Ma Minghao unbearable is that the customer service of some platforms does not provide manual customer service at all. "You have to find a human customer service, which is difficult. The AI customer service will either follow your own procedures and go around with you, or it will tell you how many people are still in line in front of you, and they won't even give you a chance to wait. Ms. Lu, the person in charge of a home appliance brand in Shenzhen, Guangdong, said that for some merchants, cost reduction, efficiency and convenience are the primary factors for them to choose AI customer service. Unlike human agents, AI agents stay all day** and are "energetic." "Respond to customer needs anytime, anywhere, regardless of time and space. Especially during busy hours, AI customer service can quickly screen and triage problems with technologies such as speech recognition and machine learning, and process a large amount of information in a short period of time, which is beyond the reach of human customer service. Ms. Lu said.
"Escape the problem".
The advantages of AI customer service are obvious, but they do not bring a good experience to consumers.
Ms. Lu admits that AI customer service will only reply according to the pre-set content, which is less flexible and cannot provide solutions to all the needs of consumers. "Compared with human customer service, it cannot perceive subtle changes in consumer tone and emotion, lacks empathy, and sometimes it is easy to misunderstand the needs of customers, especially if it cannot be transferred to human customer service, and will be complained by consumers. Ms. Lu said. She said that after using the AI customer service system for two years, the company adjusted to the mode of AI customer service and manual customer service, "AI customer service cannot solve the problem, and sometimes it may cause conflicts between merchants and consumers, and the service consumers cannot rely on AI." Not only that, but some merchants also use AI customer service to evade problems. Mr. Zhou from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province recently purchased a computer through an online platform, and after using it for a week, he called the platform's customer service ** to successfully transfer to the manual, but when he called the customer service ** for the second time, he couldn't transfer the manual work. "The manual customer service is very polite, the attitude is very positive, don't say to deal with it, don't say it's not to deal with, say it's 24 hours after the consultation**reply, but there is no future in the future, and then call** are AI answers, it should be related to their settings. Mr. Zhou said. Ms. Liu from Xingtai, Hebei Province, also had a similar experience, in her opinion, the reason why consumers continue to complain about AI customer service is not only that some AI customer service does not solve the problem, but also because AI customer service is used by some enterprises and businesses as a "shield" for prevarication problems. "In order to save labor costs, in order to avoid problems, greatly reduce manual customer service or even cancel directly, how can such a business go far in the market. Ms. Liu said.
Not a "panacea".
Some industry insiders said that in order to evade the corresponding after-sales service responsibility, some businesses deliberately blocked the feedback channel of consumers through AI customer service. "This may not bring direct loss of benefits to consumers, but it invisibly sets up communication barriers for merchants and consumers, increases communication costs, and also affects the consumer experience. Internet economy expert Gao Yang said. Gao Yang suggested that AI customer service can be further optimized and improved, such as strengthening technology research and development, establishing feedback mechanisms and other ways to improve the intelligence level of AI customer service, help AI customer service better understand complex problems, and meet the diverse needs of users. In addition, companies should not rely too much on AI customer service, and should allow consumers to switch to human customer service at any time. Mr. An, the person in charge of an electronic product company in Huizhou, Guangdong, said that customer service is an important way for enterprises to establish emotional connection with consumers and enhance brand loyalty. Enterprises should reasonably allocate manual customer service and AI customer service to facilitate users to respond to their demands in a timely and smooth manner. "Considering only cost and efficiency, responding in a timely manner, but not solving problems, not paying attention to the actual experience of users, or even cutting off the opportunity to communicate with users, is tantamount to ignoring consumer rights. Mr. An said. Mei Jianfei, a commentator on "Xinhua**", said that relevant departments should strengthen the supervision of AI customer service and should avoid some enterprises using AI customer service to evade responsibility. Smart technology is not a "panacea", and improving services at all times should be people-oriented. Merchants and platforms should always consider issues from the user's point of view. Mei Jianfei said frankly that as technology users, enterprises and businesses should realize that if enterprises want to make rapid progress, they must be in awe of the market and consumers, less foolish, and more sincere.
Producer: Minsheng Weekly (ID: msweekly) new ** department.
This article was originally published in the second issue of Minsheng Weekly magazine in 2024.
Original title: "AI customer service, don't be a service roadblock".
"Minsheng Weekly" reporter Yu Haijun.
Editor: Jiang Yuhan.
Editor in charge: Liu Yeye.
Editor-in-Chief: Cui Jingfang.
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