In an interview with Financial Times Citigroup Chief Executive Office Mike Corbat has stated that Citigroup plans to replace tens of thousands of people working in call centers with machines and that these machines will “radically change or improve” customers experience and also cut costs. It looks like to begin with they will be trying to replace humans with robots/AI when it comes to common customer queries such as replacing cards and ordering bank statements.
I have no doubt that replacing humans with machines will radically change customers experience with Citi, but given their previous implementation of other tech solutions I highly doubt it will be a positive change. That being said basic tasks such as ordering new cards and replacement statements should be trivial to do automatically so maybe I’m being overly harsh on Citi here.
Citibank has the absolute WORST cust serv so it should be a tremendous improvement to speak with a machine instead of some brain dead, barely human agent.
I tried ordering a card on the automated system. When it asked my address I said different address and it said great your new card is it on its way. Got an agent and they fixed it.
The source of the problem is that they have terrible web apps that forces people to do common tasks over the phone, not improving the web experience first seems like they are getting the priorities wrong.
Ah. The corporate tax cuts just don’t stop giving.
What is the AI equivalent of “Please do the needful?”
Press 1 for retention offers.
Thank you. Your card has been canceled. Goodbye.
80% of my phone conversations go like this…
Auto: “In just a few words, please tell me what you’re calling about.”
Me: [whatever it is I need, not available online or by auto prompt]
Auto: “I’m sorry, I do not understand. In just a few words, please tell me what you’re calling about.”
Me: “Representative.”
Auto: “Okay, you want to speak to a representative. We can better serve you if we know what you are calling about. In just a few words, please tell me what you’re calling about.”
Me: [whatever it is I need, again]
Auto: “So you want [something completely unrelated], is that correct?”
Me: “No!”
Auto: “Okay. In just a few words, please tell me what you’re calling about.”
And this can go on and on and on…
[single tear rolls down my cheek]
I thought I was the only one…
There have been many improvements in AI recently. I expect this switch to machines will improve services tremendously. Googles AI Assistant is hardly distinguishable from a human.
the problem with automated help lines is the folks who just keep hitting “0” until queued for a person. the few folks who remain end up with even longer lines
I can see some tasks that should be easy for even Citi to implement, like you said, replacement cards and such. Some banks already allow you to report a lost card and order a replacement online or on the phone automatically, with no human interaction.
Now if Citi tries to get too fancy, then I could see a disaster. Not that their current CSRs are much better than random word generators – but just because Citi usually sucks at implementing tech changes anyway!