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06-21-2024, 02:58 AM
Scenario: Your call center staff are all stressed out. They are constantly being subjected to severely angry customers, and it's taking a toll on their ability to function.
One proposed solution: Use a computer analysis of voice, changing the callers 'tone' by artificially synthesizing their voices to lower pitch and volume - making them sound less abrasive and excited.
Yup, that's the course of action one company is proposing...
From ArsTechnica: Softbank plans to cancel out angry customer voices using AI
Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank recently announced that it has been developing "emotion-canceling" technology powered by AI that will alter the voices of angry customers to sound calmer during phone calls with customer service representatives. The project aims to reduce the psychological burden on operators suffering from harassment and has been in development for three years. Softbank plans to launch it by March 2026, but the idea is receiving mixed reactions online.
I have no doubt that the concept of hiring and training staff to cope with exasperated customers is out of the question. "What? Spend money developing employees' skill sets?.. Never!"
Equally ludicrous is the idea of engaging a customer to actually resolve their complaint, thus calming them down by taking active control of the actual problem.
Instead let's make everyone sound calm artificially. Let's "impose" a tone on your speech.
I call it "censorship" of the most insidious order.
From the article...
"This is like the worst possible solution to the problem," wrote one Redditor in the thread mentioned above. "Reminds me of when all the workers at Apple's China factory started jumping out of windows due to working conditions, so the 'solution' was to put nets around the building."
...
As one Redditor wrote, "If you have so many angry customers that it is affecting the mental health of your call center operators, then maybe address the reasons you have so many irate customers instead of just pretending that they're not angry."
Coming soon to a call center near you...
One proposed solution: Use a computer analysis of voice, changing the callers 'tone' by artificially synthesizing their voices to lower pitch and volume - making them sound less abrasive and excited.
Yup, that's the course of action one company is proposing...
From ArsTechnica: Softbank plans to cancel out angry customer voices using AI
Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank recently announced that it has been developing "emotion-canceling" technology powered by AI that will alter the voices of angry customers to sound calmer during phone calls with customer service representatives. The project aims to reduce the psychological burden on operators suffering from harassment and has been in development for three years. Softbank plans to launch it by March 2026, but the idea is receiving mixed reactions online.
I have no doubt that the concept of hiring and training staff to cope with exasperated customers is out of the question. "What? Spend money developing employees' skill sets?.. Never!"
Equally ludicrous is the idea of engaging a customer to actually resolve their complaint, thus calming them down by taking active control of the actual problem.
Instead let's make everyone sound calm artificially. Let's "impose" a tone on your speech.
I call it "censorship" of the most insidious order.
From the article...
"This is like the worst possible solution to the problem," wrote one Redditor in the thread mentioned above. "Reminds me of when all the workers at Apple's China factory started jumping out of windows due to working conditions, so the 'solution' was to put nets around the building."
...
As one Redditor wrote, "If you have so many angry customers that it is affecting the mental health of your call center operators, then maybe address the reasons you have so many irate customers instead of just pretending that they're not angry."
Coming soon to a call center near you...
