The Risk and Benefits of Human Substituting Technologies and Automation

Introduction

Human substitution in the service sector has caused unemployment to rise and affected the livelihoods of many, as machines prove to be far more efficient and cheaper than human labor. However, service occupations that require human interaction such as management or relationship-based jobs are on the rise.

The purpose of the research is to let people in the customer service sector know of the risk and benefits that they can get from human substituting technologies and automation in the future and at present. The solution proposed would benefit both the companies and employees in the customer service sector. The group's focus point is primarily in the service sector and does not delve into other sectors or occupations being automated or under the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the future.

Discussion

Benefits & drawbacks of human substituting technologies in customer service

Another benefit is that human substituting technologies like AI can help lower the risk of human error by being programmed to conduct a standardised service approach. This helps companies as they can ensure that their customers are being served with the best and most accurate information and service possible which benefits the business and consumers well.

However, with many good things that exist in the metropolis world we live in there exist major drawbacks to it. The major problem that exists with this technology is that automation follows a very rigid line of coding so most of the time it cannot deal with unexpected problems that may arise when dealing with customer service such as emotional relief and understanding.

Another drawback of human substituting technologies is that robots are very fragile beings with chips being their source of power. If the chip is corrupted or damaged, the robots may start to malfunction and cause problems for the customer service industry. This may lead to poor customer services which may results in bad business for the companies. Therefore, humans overpower robots in this aspect.

Future of human substitution technologies in customer service.

Human substitution as it is has already taken over many aspects of human work. For example, jobs like bowling pin setter no longer need human to perform as this process can be readily automated. Thus, when humans are no longer needed to do this job they find themselves jobless, not knowing what to do in life.

One of the future predictions for artificial intelligence in the customer service sector is that artificial intelligence can potentially have both human and machine intelligence which can help complement the employee's work and ensure that there is better job satisfaction amongst employees.

Another prediction for artificial intelligence in the customer service sector is that there will be a period time where automation starts to take over the customer service jobs like cashiers and those jobs who are affected by it will have to adapt by creating new jobs like supervising the robots in case any complex or emotional issues which tends to happen quite often in the customer service sector.

How do human substituting technologies affect consumers in customer service?

The growth in consumerism, increased competitiveness and globalization has led to more emphasis on customer service, and in the fast-paced society where customers have increasingly less time to spare it is therefore of paramount importance that customer service needs to be efficient and effective to be able to create a strong relationship between customer and businesses.

For example, a proposed system called MASCRM (Multi-Agent Social Customer Relationship Management) where its main motive is to obtain and process data from social media sites, transferring the data collected to its databases, and then analyzing the data collected so

businesses can quickly respond to customer's behaviors and see how relevant their marketing strategies are towards customers. By knowing customer's behaviors, they can customize their services to suit customer's needs, thereby enhancing customer service. Consumers will therefore benefit as they're able to get feedback faster and feel more empowered to make the right choices.

Conclusion

AI helps companies support their consumer's enquiries 24/7. With that, humans will have more time to give back to the community. It also reduces the risk of human error since they are programmed to work in a certain way. However, AI may not be able to deal with high-emotions situations. Furthermore, chips of the AI may become faulty and cause a bad reputation for a company. Despite the benefits, human substitution inevitably takes many people's job.

Recommendations

Being in a tech savvy society, designing an application that help analyse consumer's strength and skills and recommend them a new job they could take up as a career. Alongside with companies collaborating to expand the jobs scope available in the application. We could design an interactive board near a bus stop to allow passersby to complete a survey which would have advice given by professionals about their career via text or email.