Imagine a follow-up call of a customer. They are referring to earlier calls and the call center agents needs to check what it was about. So they can skim/read the transcripts while talking to the customer. I guess it's really hard to listen to transcripts while you're on the phone.

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ethagknight 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Im imagining my actual experience of being transferred for the 3rd or 4th time, repeating my name and address for the 3rd or 4th time, restating my problem for the 3rd or 4th time... feels like theres an implementation problem, not a technological problem.

Quick and accurate routing and triage of inbound calls may be more fruitful and far easier than summarizing hundreds of hours of "ok now plug the router back into the wall." Im imagining AI identifying a specific technical problem that sounds a lot like a problem that a specific technician successfully solved previously.

	▲	0x457 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Also waiting music being interrupted every minute to tell: 1) my call is very important to them (it's not) 2) listen carefully because options changed (when? 5 years ago?) 3) they have a website where I can do things (you can't, otherwise why would I call?) 4) please stay at the end of call to give them feedback (sure, I will waste more of my time)

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dsr_ 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That would be awesome!

But in fact, customer call centers tend not to be able to even know that you called in yesterday, three days ago and last week.

This is why email-ticketing call centers are vastly superior.

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Jolter 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Perhaps doing this suggested auto-summarizing would be what finally solves that problem?

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josefx 3 days ago | parent [-]

Is doing that going to be cheaper than not doing it?

	▲	bmicraft 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe, if it means people spend less time on calls (because their problem got solved sooner?)

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dvfjsdhgfv 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm in love with email-based support as I am on both sides of the chain. When I raise a problem, the engineers on the other side can work at their pace, escalate when needed, and I almost always get a reasonably good reply. I can dig deeper if I wish, and I'm pretty sure the guys on the other end are doing their best.

It works the same way when I'm helping someone else: most reasonable people don't expect that if they make an audio call I will magically solve their problem faster. Maybe it will be slower and they will get a lower-quality ad-hoc solution.

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3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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tomwheeler 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> But in fact, customer call centers tend not to be able to even know that you called in yesterday, three days ago and last week.

Nor what you told the person you talked to three minutes earlier, during the same call, before they transferred you to someone else. Because their performance is measured on how quickly they can get rid of you.

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ssharp 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've always guessed that they are able to tell when you called/what you called about, but they simply don't give that level of information to their frontline folks.

	▲	Imustaskforhelp 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It might be because its in their interests to do so. It is our problem that needs fixing, so we can just wait untill either they redirect us to the right person with the right knowledge who might be one of the higher ups in the call centers. Or we just quit the call. Either way, it doesn't matter to the company. Plus points that they don't have to teach the frontline customer service more details too and it could be easier for them to onboard new people / fire old employees. Also they would have to pay less if they require very low specifications. man I remember the is 0.001 cent = 0.001 $ video /meme of verizon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUpZg-Ua5ao

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fifilura 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I am sorry about your bad experience. Maybe the ones you called did not have AI transcribed summaries and were not managed by GP?

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variadix 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Still makes more sense to do the transcription an analysis lazily rather than ahead of time (assuming you can do it relatively quickly). If that person never calls in again the transcription was a waste of money.