Should Philippine Call Centers Worry About Artificial Intelligence?
Will AI replace the need for Offshore Call Centers?
Although technology is still developing, we currently use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a variety of ways in our daily lives. However, a lot of people are concerned about how automation and AI will affect our daily lives. Lead generation experts now ponder the possibility that AI could replace contact center agents as the influence of AI continues to grow.
Even though real, live human agents and supervisors still play a crucial overall role in call centers, call center AI technology is becoming more and more integrated into how these so-called next-generation call centers operate. In reality, it is replacing some agents’ responsibilities along the process.
But let’s be clear: While some call center operations, like a portion or the entirety of a client call, may be handled by today’s AI solutions for contact centers, human agents aren’t necessarily being completely replaced.
Simply said, there are still many things that call center AI cannot accomplish. There will always be a requirement for a lot of human involvement in the call center industry, at least for now.
The Development of AI in Call Centers and the Changes It Has Made
Numerous ways in which AI has already transformed call center operations, and it’s not a stretch to predict that there will probably be even more advancements that we haven’t yet thought of!
Here are a few significant steps in the evolution of AI in contact centers so far:
Call routing has transitioned from being manual to being automated. Today, AI-powered systems can assess incoming calls and utilize algorithms to identify the best-qualified agent to address a particular query. By doing so, manual call transfers are no longer necessary, wait times are decreased, and clients are immediately connected to the agent best suited to respond to their inquiries.
Virtual agents, also known as chatbots or conversational AI, use Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to interpret and reply to consumer inquiries in real time. Previously, every client query required human participation. These sophisticated chatbots can respond right away, saving clients from spending hours on hold and freeing up human customer service representatives to attend to inquiries that really call for their expertise.
AI-assisted reviews and speech analytics, call center supervisors generally would have to listen to the call records of their employees from start to finish in order to conduct performance evaluations and score QA. With the help of AI-assisted reviews and speech analytics, supervisors no longer need to perform manual QA. Currently, call records and transcripts can be analyzed by speech analytics technologies powered by AI to speed up this time-consuming process by indicating whether the agent met the QA scoring criteria. A supervisor doesn’t have to choose calls at random to evaluate because AI can do this instantaneously for all of an agent’s calls. This lowers the likelihood of an unfair QA review because a manager picked a truly poor call at random to review.
The Future of Philippine Call Centers and Artificial Intelligence
The Philippines is one of the largest global hubs for business process outsourcing (BPO), a sector devoted to contracting out entire corporate processes to other businesses, like customer support lines and content moderation. The industry is struggling to strike a balance between automating its roughly 1.6 million employees out of a job and losing clients to other outsourcing centers that can provide generative AI-powered services at lower costs as a result of the rise in generative AI. Political and commercial leaders are working to develop a strategy, frequently in opposition to one another, as the multibillion-dollar industry accounts for 7.5% of the Philippine GDP.
A former official with the information and communications technology agency Mon Ibrahim, claimed that in 2018, BPO firms started experimenting with AI tools like chatbots, primarily for repetitive and rule-based interactions. Ibrahim helped pioneer the Philippines’ BPO sector in the early 2000s. He said that if the government does not make its move to capacitate to integrate AI in the upcoming years, this can have a huge impact on the industry and cause the loss of jobs.
He added that while the use of AI can speed up inquiries, their responses frequently lacked empathy and led to client annoyance. However, that risk has decreased with the shift to generative AI.
The Philippines’ Next Move
Philippine senator, Imee Marcos, submitted a motion requesting an investigation into the probable displacement of BPO workers and manufacturing sectors. The senator, who is also the sister of current Philippine President Bongbong Marcos, laid caution on lawmakers saying AI is developing faster than most people can comprehend and can turn employment growth upside down. Based on a report by the Oxford Economics and Tech corporation, Cisco, by 2028, 1.1 million jobs in the Philippines could become obsolete due to digital automation.
Call centers in the rest of the world should be able to incorporate generative AI, but employees should also be properly trained on how to use the tools. Jack Madrid, president of the industry lobby IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) said this matter should be taken as a wake-up call and is well worth defending. He cited that the only worrying factor is the inability of the Filipino workforce to upskill and slow down the industry’s adoption of AI.
Deploying AI tools can result in the displacement of human jobs. The use of an AI platform at Navix Health allows the company to perform tasks that would often be handled by medical receptionists. However, Navix Health CTO, Colin Christie asserted that some workers could lose their employment, new and alternative jobs might be created as a result of the increased business brought about by the use of AI.
Although there is legitimate concern about whether AI could result in job losses, call centers will always have a need for people in this industry.
