I worked as tech support in a call center years ago. In my experience, the biggest barrier to customer satisfaction was not what I did, but the many conflicting and antagonistic rules I had to follow. The only way that can be improved with a bot is if whoever implements the bot has more leverage to point out these problems.

The funny thing about call centers is that customers hate them, even when you are good at providing the service. Well regarded, customer focused companies like American Express offer best in class service -- but something like 60% of customers still don't want to talk to them and prefer email or web.

I think Google has an opportunity to do something interesting here, where you basically offer a voice API for humans to interact with. If they can scale it from conversational interactions down to "shortcut" command interfaces and drop the stupid dance that you do when initially calling, that would be an amazing thing.

The problem with call centers, as an ex-IT guy for several of them, is not the people, but the interface they have to the company behind them.

People expect call centers to be able to do anything. Companies hiring call centers give them 2 or 3 options in a clunky web interface. Or worse, access to a ticketing system. Management does not want the call center to be able to do things, or wants certain metrics (no more than 10 unsubscribings per month - that sort of thing), and this then gets translated in "incentives" for the people answering the calls.

Calling up lots of companies is just a hassle, and you get trained to dislike it due to all the negative experiences.

My best support experiences have been with Apple. I've had to interact with them on the phone a few times and it has always been a highly positive experience. They don't give you any crap or try to sell more stuff.

'...or lack of empathy.'

There is a telecom co in the UK that directs out of hours calls to India. I don't know who's training these people but they do the exact reverse - showering you in empathy to the point where it seems like they are making fun of you?

Sometimes too much empathy feels fake, and fake empathy gets the opposite result. My bank has started calling me in a more "cheerful" tone. They ask how my day is, and then they express how happy they are to hear I'm fine.

I know I'll sound like the Grinch, but I really HATE it. I already decided to give you some minutes of my day, because maybe you'll tell me something important about my account, maybe you'll offer me something interesting, even though 80% of the time you'll offer something I don't really want, so we'll waste each other's time. But we won't know until you finish pretending you are interested in my day.

The way I have started responding to these fake cheery calls is to be equally fake cheery. It sometimes illicits a more genuine response.

> worker incompetence, language barriers, or lack of empathy

As if Duplex wont exhibit all of these.

However it won't exhibit the "please wait, there are 324823 callers in front of you, please listen to this recording of my daughter's cat singing 'let it be' for the next year or two".

Are you sure? This behaviour is actually desirable because the shitty company behind it enjoys the fact that they get less calls as a result.

This problem could’ve been solved for ages without Duplex - simply call, they remember your call and call you back when an operator is ready for you. The reason it’s not used is because shitty companies don’t want this.

Sounds like an interface problem. Solved simply the way Amazon handles it: Push a button and they call you instead.

Can I be the first to say that I hate that even more ?

Why do you hate that even more?

> or lack of empathy.

Feel empathy from a machine? The moment anyone realizes or finds out that the "relationship" they just built or experienced over the phone was programmed, any feelings of connection or empathy get tossed out.

The ethical concern isn't about the AI replacing jobs, it's about something calling me and disingenuously posing as a human being. If your machine calls me, it needs to announce that it is AI. I am not interested in replacing humans or human connection.

> it could be a big leap for customer satisfaction.

Exhibit A of everything that is wrong with consumerist, material societies. Everyone is a customer in need of satisfaction in the form of products and services.

Lack of empathy can be dealt with when expected. It also makes a difference when lack of empathy isn't coupled with sarcasm, exasperation, or boredom.

>>Everyone is a customer in need of satisfaction in the form of products and services.

The point of contacting a call center is because you are unsatisfied as a customer. Customer satisfaction is the only factor in a capitalist society. There is no alternative. If customers are not satisfied, you don't get business.

You can argue until you're blue in the face about the evils of consumerism, but it's pretty irrelevant to this discussion.

You conflate the two. You can have capitalism and not be a consumerist, materialist society.

The cynic in me hope that Google charges through the roof for this - if barrier to operate a Duplex robocall center is very low, I suspect we'll get bombarded by sales calls from Duplex centers. Not that anyone really answers the phone nowadays though :)

For context, here in sweden it's more or less not allowed to cold call people if they are on a "don't call me"-list, unless it's part of an ongoing or previous relationship, so my ISP can call me for upselling.

Similar here in the UK but it doesn't appear to put off certain companies. Some calls are just recordings pretending to have a conversation (which I'd be surprised if anyone fell for) and others route you to a human. They will never divulge the name or details of the company they represent, I can't imagine their success rate is very good.

While it will no doubt be somewhat more competent and have a better grasp of english, do you see a computer as being more empathetic? Here is my favorite lack of empathy quote from a computer:

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't let you do that.

Unique, inaudible fingerprints for synthetic voices would make it trivial to alert people that they are not talking to a person, and might enable some useful optimizations for ASR.