Question

What do you think about using robots to train customer service employees? Can you think of other applications for technology like this?

Answer 1

I think with the advancement in technology and especially with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the use of robots to train the customer service employees could prove beneficial however, I feel there needs to be the presence of some amount of human interventions as well because the customer service employees are to deal with real people with real-life problems. The robotic way of looking into the same, shall be too mechanical in nature. Customers impliedly require the customer service employees to empathy with their concerns and if feasible, try going out of the way, to reach out to them. Robotic teaching shall make this training very rigid. It shall lack the fruits of dynamism through the comprehension of human feelings in it. Robotic training for floor space operations in manufacturing still makes better sense to me because there, it has to deal with goods more than the workers in terms of improvement of efficiency. But in a service like that of training the employees, the human intervention helps in addressing to the training queries pertaining to various typical customer cases, in a more efficient manner that what robots can do.

I think other applications for technology like this could that be of Big data, Six Sigma, in the service industry, Simulation techniques, etc. wherein the purpose is to improve the efficiency of the customer services operations through optimal utilization of resources.