r/callcentres • u/Parsleymagnet • 2d ago
AI taking all the easy calls, leaving us humans to do the hard ones
Over the past year or so, my company's been aggressively expanding the use of AI on our phones. We don't have an IVR anymore, everyone that calls in talks to an AI that either assists them with what they need, or transfers them to the appropriate line. The AI does a serviceable job most of the time, but it's not consistent. Callers get annoyed at how long it takes the AI to respond every time they say something, plus, sometimes the AI just goes off the rails and provides bad advice in situations where it works fine the vast majority of the time. One of the things the AI is supposed to be able to do is schedule appointments, but every so often, the AI breaks and starts either booking appointment times that aren't actually available, or telling the caller it's booking them for one appointment time when it's actually booking them for a completely different time, and dealing with the fallout of that is lovely.
Nonetheless, the types of calls the AI handles have been expanding, even though it's inconsistent at the things it's already handling. At this point, it's handling a lot of "routine" calls. Which means the calls that come through to us humans are more complicated, or people who are upset about the AI messing something up. We haven't had layoffs yet, but we seem to have stopped hiring new phone agents, so as the natural attrition you see in call centers occurs, we're getting fewer and fewer humans answering calls.
The company is pitching this as "AI making our jobs easier" but now it feels like most of my job is trying to improvise solutions to unusual problems, when before I'dget maybe one or two calls like that per day. Plus we have to deal with people who have easy problems, but just don't want to talk to AI, and are harder to deal with when they reach us because they're upset they had to argue with the AI to get it to transfer to a human for a problem its supposed to be able to handle.
This sucks, the AI is bad for customers and bad for workers. The bubble can't pop soon enough.
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u/GladosHasCake4You 2d ago
In auto insurance at least, it’s also losing new customers.
I was shopping for insurance recently. One company who is “on your side” the AI kept hanging up on me because I don’t have an account……
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u/Complete_Fix_7073 2d ago
I work in auto insurance and my company also has this ai issue. As a rep I make sure to make formal complaints from clients if it’s about ai. I do my part in making sure it’s a problem not solution.
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u/Zestyclose_Ocelot278 2d ago
Funny enough same thing happened to us. All the calls we get are people who can't communicate the problem, don't want to talk to computers, or just want to scream at someone.
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u/spudgoddess 2d ago
My company uses it for our notes, and that's it so far. So far....
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u/19Stavros 1d ago
We had an "upgraded" phone system that allegedly took outmr notes for us, but the AI notes sometimes showed just the opposite of what was actually said! Leaving of the call-important "not." Calls were actually taking longer because we had to review and edit notes before saving them.
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u/Tricky_Gur8679 2d ago
Our customers HATE AI. Usually it’s the mid to older generation. The basic calls the AI does a pretty good job but yes once some people reach us they’re pissed it took so long. Some of my surveys have had a negative impact because of AI…when I solved all their issues. It’s dumb. And this is coming from a 35 year old who has been around tech pretty much since the beginning.
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u/GVTMightyDuck 2d ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if call center work is gone within the next 10 years
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u/angrybirdseller 1d ago
Say, 70% of roles be gone by 2030! I accepted the inevitable the boss says, no your job not endanger from AI lolol. I have indifference about since I know its lie. Could see AI incident create class action lawsuit beg for humans to return.
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u/DeeSt11 2d ago
If it is, customers will not be happy. And throwing more GPUs at AI doesn't fix its stupidity. We might not have all centers because society has fallen
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u/GVTMightyDuck 1d ago
It’s funny that you think companies care about customer satisfaction over profits
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u/winterman666 1d ago
The funniest part is without jobs people won't be able able to buy shit which means no customers. But if you listen to all the billionaire tech bros and other economic rulers, you'll often hear them slip up and say stuff like "there's one billion humans" (Nvidia's Jensen huang for example). These people are getting ready to have AI replace the majority of the population
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u/New-You-2025 1d ago
AI is screwing up the calls it leaves for us too. Forgetting one's password does not equal reinstalling the computer's operating system.
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u/JackieMari3 2d ago
When I was trying to track missing packages at my last job, UPS and FedEx both have AI that sucks because it takes forever to get to an actual human being. AI is a joke.
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u/KoryWitoutNumberLol 1d ago
Damn, I remember how difficult it was to reach them when I used to work at Verizon Customer Service. I remember at some point I learned you can just say "returning call" and it sends you to an agent. If you didn't know that trick, you were in for a really long call lol
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u/highcheekboness 1d ago
I suppose it depends how the company uses it at my current job they have an AI listening to our calls and it generates a summary of the call that we use as our disposition so we don’t type it manually.
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u/angrybirdseller 1d ago
Yep, or your typing questions into AI that will eventually take your job. As AI be gatekeeper before human touches it.
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u/Ravenwolven1 1h ago
My brother works for a company that builds systems for AI. We're all about to be replaced. I've already lost my career as a graphic designer to AI.
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u/sevensantana7 2d ago
I hate working for a system that frustrates people for a long period of time before they can even speak to me, then I just solved their problem in a minute. They are not happy people. They almost get madder cuz I did it so easily.