Call center staffers explain to researchers how their AI assistants aren't very helpful

ai-pocalypse Recent research details how customer service reps at a Chinese utility's call center often struggled when trying to use an AI assistant, and were forced to make manual fixes.

Researchers affiliated with a Chinese power utility and several Chinese universities recently conducted a study of how customer service representatives (CSRs) at the power utility's call center use AI assistance during their interactions with customers. The study is based on 13 semi-structured interviews with service reps, including team leaders and shift supervisors, responsible for handling phone inquiries.

The preprint paper, accepted to the 28th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW) in October, attempts to provide an alternative to assessments of AI geared toward management and customer experience, focusing instead on the workers forced to use AI during customer calls.

One of the findings is that the AI often inaccurately transcribed customer call audio ...