We don’t like them, most people see them as problematical, inefficient and a frustration to deal with. Why then are more companies switching their phone service to a call centre? Simple, to save money on staff.

The website Science Direct has made an in-depth study of call centres. Under the title ‘Exploring the influence of the human factor on customer satisfaction in call centres’. Their introduction to the results says it all.

‘The call centre industry is a peculiar service industry, in as much as it is almost entirely based on a voice-to-voice encounter between the employee and the customer, on opposite ends of the telephone line. In general, customers are less satisfied with the service they receive from call centres than from the more traditional brick n’ mortar, or face-to-face service encounters. Academic researchers attribute this dislike of call centres to various reasons, such as cultural acceptance of technology a general lack of experience in dealing with technology and the difficulties experienced by older consumers with technology. In addition, people often feel irritated when dealing with automated answering machines with rude employees, with long waiting times and overall poor service. Ironically, although the concept of the call centre originated as a relationship marketing tool, it is widely accepted that customer satisfaction is not generally associated with call centre operations.


The customer doesn’t like having to deal with a call centre

The study by Science Direct is good, but it only says what we all know. We like to deal with real people who understand what we need. BMW are a case in point, but they are not the only ones. You can’t make a phone call to the local showroom and garage. You can call the local number, but it is answered by the call centre in Lisbon. If you ask to speak to the local reception, they will try to connect you, but the local reception don’t answer the call. I asked the call centre for an appointment to service my car, they said it couldn’t be done for six weeks. That’s what the computer told them. I went into the local showroom and spoke to reception ‘face-to-face’. They solved the problem and offered me an appointment within a few days. Why? Because they know the client, they speak to the service manager ‘next door’, and everything is solved. Happy client. The call centre can’t do that, they can’t offer any sort of personal service. This is just an example of what I have personally experienced. Superb service and technical support were ambushed by an incompetent call centre.


Airlines

Airlines probably have the best defence for using call centres. It keeps ticketing and flight control centralised and combined with online services offers a lot of convenience. But what if something goes wrong, and it sometimes does? At Faro most airlines had a desk with staff members, who should be able to resolve problems face to face. British Airways used to have a station manager, Sr Ventura, and he was a great problem solver. TAP had a desk manned by TAP staff. The airline will justify closing these with the simple answer, you want cheap seats, we have to cut back on non-profit making services. If you do have a problem, I don’t need to tell you the problems you will have getting through to the call centre, let alone solving issues. Face-to-face customer service is being phased out everywhere.

People will have their own experiences with call centres, and please feel free to share them. The point of this article is that the use of call centres is growing fast, and in the vast majority of cases, we don’t like this. We like dealing with real people, preferably face-to-face. The growth of call centres has nothing to do with improving customer service, it’s about cost saving, reducing staff and automating everything they can. We are not robots, we like to deal with real people, that’s how we are in the vast majority of cases.

AI will only make things worse

Many of the companies that supply call centre software are now promoting artificial intelligence. That’s a complete misnomer. If it’s artificial it won’t be intelligent, it’s just doing what it’s been told to do, presumably by ‘intelligent’ human beings.

The claim is that the use of AI will improve customer service. That’s rather implausible. We don’t want to talk to a machine, we want to talk to people, preferably people who know their product and can answer questions and resolve any ‘issues’ that we have.

Already if you use ‘live chat’ on a site, you are probably talking to an AI bot. From my personal experience, they are virtually useless and rarely come out with an intelligent, let alone helpful answer. The company is hoping you will be satisfied with whatever answer you get and won’t need to speak to a real (expensive) human who actually knows what they are talking about. It’s all about cost-cutting, not customer service.

AI is achieving remarkable results in the health sector, it isn’t doing this by answering phone calls, its amassing previous relevant results and experience and using this to great effect.

Have a look through the websites of the AI call centre suppliers. They list masses of ‘advantages’ obtained by using AI-powered customer support. Look carefully through all the hype and their key claim is ‘73% Decrease in Live Agent Workload’. It’s not about service, far from it, it’s about employing less staff. AI has its uses, but not in replacing face-to-face interaction. Companies who feel they can fob us off with claims about how much easier it will be for us to deal with them are kidding us and themselves.

Author

Resident in Portugal for 50 years, publishing and writing about Portugal since 1977. Privileged to have seen, firsthand, Portugal progress from a dictatorship (1974) into a stable democracy. 

Paul Luckman