The discussion about whether generative AI will cost customer contact jobs continues to fly in all directions. That is understandable, but also remarkable. In addition to technology, there are also other developments that contribute to a reduction in the number of customer contact jobs in the Netherlands. Part 3 in a series about the significance of AI for customer contact.

 

The Dutch customer contact industry tends to downplay the impact of AI on employment. For example, by pointing out the inability of AI to respond empathetically. Or by pointing out that human contact remains necessary for complex problems. Tech companies, in turn, like to emphasize that AI will mainly play a role in real-time support of agents. There is certainly an opportunity there, but it is not the whole truth. Ziptone lists five developments.

 

1. There are several signs that indicate that precisely customer service jobs are vulnerable to AI. Teleperformance reported to its investors during its quarterly results presentation earlier this year that its proprietary generative AI solution (TP GPT) can reduce call times by nearly 40%. TP also expects that up to 30% of its own volumes can be automated within three years. It is unclear what the degree of complexity of this customer contact is.

In an interview by podcast host Lex Friedman with OpenAI CEO-Sam Altman (see video below), Altman was asked about an example of an industry that could feel the impact of AI on employment. He points to customer service as a category where he “could see a lot fewer jobs relatively quickly.”

 

2. “Are employees being replaced by AI” might be the wrong question. “Can companies resist the temptation to take the next step?” is more obvious.

Judging by the evolution of contact centers, the answer is “no”. In recent years, all kinds of solutions have been implemented and choices have been made in which improving the customer experience was not the focus, but saving costs. Think of IVRs, web forms, no-reply email addresses, web forms and chatbots. None of these solutions led to fines, a buyers' strike among consumers or protests from customer experience professionals. This also applies to nearshoring and offshoring, another mechanism that causes jobs in customer contact to disappear in the Netherlands. Automation is never sick and always available. Systems do not complain about collective agreements and do not steal data.

 

3. Personnel costs for Dutch-speaking customer service are relatively high; near- and offshoring becomes even more financially attractive, especially for expensive languages ​​and/or expensive countries the rise of real-time speech translation.

Language is no longer an obstacle to sourcing customer contact: real-time speech translation makes every agent multilingual. In addition, existing and new legislation in the Netherlands means that the costs of flexible labor are expected to increase by at least 10%. Add to this the fact that traditional BPO locations are changing their course because they feel the hot breath of AI on their necks: it won't be long before they capitalize on the breakthrough in language-independent customer service and put their best employees forward for this.

 

4. AI is (among other things) capable of simulate empathy. This can achieve the same result as employees who simulate empathy.

Yes, complex problems and questions remain for flesh and blood employees, but on the other hand, the development of new AI applications is not standing still. “It's not impossible that there will be an AI with feeling, if we want to build it”, says Pieter Abbeel, who has been a professor at the University of Berkeley since 2008. He leads the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab there and in 2016 he worked in the then still young OpenAI. The potential of AI is many times greater than we can now imagine.

 

5. Companies are working hard to simplify their processes and the associated IT landscapes: self-service options are increasing and the need for human support becomes relatively smaller.

New entrants in industries such as finance, e-commerce, media and travel are not trailing legacy in CX, IT and HR. With strategies such as digital first, they reduce the chance that human customer contact has to take place and increase the chance that that contact can be automated in the long term. Many older (and formerly large) contact centers have also become relatively smaller in recent years due to the elimination and automation of customer questions. It is unlikely that the number of customer contact jobs will grow net, if only because companies want to reduce labor costs around CX, or at least not let them grow with the size of the turnover.

Fewer agents in Dutch-speaking areas?

Will the developments of AI be at the expense of Dutch customer contact jobs? Yes, and although it is a guess as to the pace and extent of the contraction, it is to be expected that especially customer contact, for which one-call resolution is currently possible, is a good candidate for disappearing from the Netherlands. With the disappearance of the language barrier, the low labor costs and high work ethic become even greater benefits of near and offshore BPO locations.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) sees that 42% of Dutch employees are concerned about the influence of AI in the workplace. It is the highest percentage of all countries surveyed. Leaders are much more optimistic about AI than frontline workers (62% vs. 42%). 86% of the respondents (nearly 13.000 people from 18 countries) state that they will need new competences; 14% of frontline workers say they have received training.

Is a declining number of agents a problem?

Is it bad that employment in Dutch customer contact departments is declining? Working in customer contact is seen as a 'professional', but most courses last less than a month and a large proportion of the employees only work very temporarily in the field. The latter makes the argument of 'Dutch quality' and 'people make the difference' quite debatable in many cases. The question is how the quality of services provided by companies will develop if more use is made of AI and nearshoring and offshoring.

Although the field has developed positively in many respects, the question is to what extent people are waiting for a job in a contact center. On the other hand, a substantive change or enrichment of the operational customer contact work as a result of AI may make it more attractive. (Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

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