In my mind, there are at least three kinds of talking robots…
There are the digital assistants…Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant and Cortana.
There are the voice prompt robots for managing phone calls to large business
And while I am sure there are many other voice recognition robots, there are also the humans on the other end of a call that have turned into ‘scripted’ robots that don’t deviate from the tedious script.
All of these robots have a lot of potential, but they also have the potential to misunderstand and provide the wrong response.
As these robots gain more training and learn on the job, they might actually benefit the customer and the organization.
But the scripted human robots have a much tougher job. There are rules and policies to be followed. Inconsistent application of these rules and policies depending on the representative that answers the call is a huge problem for organization.
Designing these processes for the lowest common denominator seems like the straightforward approach, but it is the mass production mentality at work.
The answer isn’t building better scripts either. It is building better systems that help people know what to do went presented with different scenarios.
