“We have underestimated what we had to lose …” Observation in the form of a mea guilt of the Klarna Chief, convinced of the Tecnosoloista, which is considered “the Favorite Indian bunny of OpenAi” and that sees in Klarna a company “AI First” “AI”.
A few months ago, we talked a lot about this decision to eliminate 1800 jobs to put AI everywhere in its marketing and customer services. Sebastian Siemiatkowski estimated that Chatgpt had become so powerful that he could have the work of 700 human agents without problems, with a resolution rate of less than 2 minutes at request against 11 minutes with humans.
That was on paper. Except that in real life, obviously, customers have swollen from AI: often automated responses next to the plate and, above all, lack of nuances and subtleties. A chatbot, as efficient as it is difficult to read between the lines, detect emotion in the voice of an angry customer, be empathy or improvise in an unprecedented situation.
In summary, an obvious loss of quality … Hence this step back: specifically today, two thirds of customer relationships will continue to be administered by AI, but customers will always have the option of talking to a human, which makes the difference when it faces a complex problem.
There is no magic wand
It shows that humans are not easily replaced that there is a hidden cost for forced automation: loss of ties, nuances and social intelligence, especially in customer service.
In a nutshell, as a client, we want humans. This is confirmed by an important study on customer service published last year: 4 out of 5 clients say that when they are given the option, they prefer to wait online to talk to a human instead of having to do with a chatbot immediately.
Then, customers believe that understanding complex problems, the ease of obtaining an answer and especially the evacuation of frustration, it is much better to talk to a human.
Finally, customers are not deceived: 6 out of 10 respondents believe that companies establish AI attendees in their customer service so as not to improve service but to reduce costs …
In addition, Klarna is not the first, and probably not the last to return. There were even some memorable failures such as this chatbot created by Air Canada, which made false prices reduced to customers. The company was even ordered to reimburse a client who had lost money due to these hallucinations.
We can also think of McDonald’s, who tested for two years with IBM an automatic trip thanks to AI, in more than 100 restaurants, where he could make his order, before finally abandoning the project, at least temporarily.
What works well today are hybrid models, where we will use the power of AI to increase the capacities of a human operator. For example, blowing the best possible answers to a client. But it is the human who maintains control. In any case at the moment.
Source: BFM TV
