Surface Ripples

An AI Saga

Not long ago, I posted an article on customer reactions to Artificial Intelligence (AI).

I recently experienced a “typical” episode of AI falling down on the proverbial job.   Interestingly enough, it concerned one of the categories in the XM Institute chart in the article I posted: “Lack of a human being to connect with”. One could also say it was covered by “Poor quality of the interaction”.

I simply wanted to find out why a particular amount had been taken out of my account.  Normally, I would email the bank concerned and let them respond in their own time.  However, this bank doesn’t have a “Customer Questions” email address.  Customers are faced with two choices:

Call the bank (and spend ages on “hold” listening to poor quality holding music whilst also pressing myriad buttons to select a choice of what your issue is.

Use their “artificial intelligence” to resolve the problem. 

I get it: AI’s still in its infancy and I suspect it will take time for AI programmes to really settle down to the state in which they can interact with customers effectively.  However, all I had was a simple question, “To whom was this direct debit payable?”

The AI was unable to solve my problem (probably because I couldn’t express it in the appropriate “AI language”) so I had no choice but to make a call to the bank’s hotline.

I live overseas and the hotline is open from 8 am to 8 pm UK time.  For me, that’s 3 pm to 1 am my time.  I will therefore have to wait until 3 pm (having first tried to raise the query at approximately 10 am my time), go through the process of connecting to the “right” service representative, and then taking up their time and mine with a relatively simple question.

A simple email address for “non-time sensitive queries” is another option.  The problem I think that many organisations have found with these in the past is making sure that said email address is monitored frequently enough to turn around requests in a “reasonable” amount of time.

No doubt, the bank in question will improve its AI as it collects more experiences and feedback from customers using the system.  In the meantime, though, it means that people are likely to spend more time rather than less sorting out simple problems.

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website  provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  

Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 08:14