“Danger! Will Robinson, Danger!”
I’ve long been fascinated by stories of friendly robots, robots that run amok, AI, and so on. (Yes, I’m a Sci Fi geek). And, one reason I drop in on the MIT Technology Review is that it gives me hope for the human race (lots of very smart people working on all kinds of things.)
Then, today, I read “How to Be Human”
If this year’s winner of the Loebner Prize is on the right track, call-center data could be what’s needed to achieve the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence (AI): creating a computer program smart enough to hold a natural conversation.
A self-trained enthusiast with no formal academic background in AI, Rollo Carpenter created the winning program, which learns by analyzing its conversations with people as they “chat” with it online. Regardless of the language, his program analyzes every utterance it witnesses, using what Carpenter calls contextual pattern-recognition techniques. Then, when a user asks the program a question, a database is combed for the best response, statistically speaking.
Carpenter knows he needs a lot more data - and is turning to call centers for it. Well, putting aside the fact that we humans may not want to interface with a machine (no matter how well programmed) when we’re unhappy, frightened or angry - here’s hoping he gathers conversations from good call centers. Otherwise, it’ll be another case of “garbage in, garbage out” since “intelligent conversation” is exactly the element missing from many call center interactions.
Me? I still strongly believe you’ve got to keep the human in the equation when it comes to customer service - it’s about the relationships, not necessarily efficiency.
Related Posts:
People Who Need People
Customer Service Versus Processing
Tags: AI, call centers, customer service
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November 2nd, 2006 at 9:30 am
[…] Related Posts: Customers are Soooo Inconvenient! “Danger! Will Robinson, Danger!” Customers – Service Vs. Processing […]
November 9th, 2006 at 5:15 am
I have often point out to my clients and any other companies that I interact with as a customer, that their obsessive attempts to improve efficiency by using technology to cut people out of the process is a death spiral. The more people they cut to be efficient, the fewer people have money to by their products.
As sales drop, companies try to get even more efficient, and the duty dance with death continues. At the retail level, this dance changing from a waltz to a mosh pit. With Robo-cashiers popping up in store after store (http://secretbuyer.blogspot.com/ - see Running with Scissors), it is only going to be a matter of time before companies are forced to find some way to sell to their computers.