An AI is to iron out the accents of call centre agents
The world's largest call centre operator, Teleperformance, wants to use an AI that reproduces the words of the call centre agent in real time in accent-free English. Other languages are to follow.
Call centre agents are not always easy to understand, especially when they speak with a foreign accent. The French company Teleperformance operates call centres for Western markets on behalf of other companies in Asia and elsewhere. It now wants to tackle the problem with AI.
The company announced that it is using AI to remove language barriers to understanding on the phone. The caller speaks to a human, but hears an AI.
Accents as a hurdle to communication
Teleperformance is the global market leader in the field of customer service outsourcing. According to the company, around 500,000 employees worldwide process support requests and carry out customer acquisition for clients including Amazon, Apple and Uber.
To improve telephone communication between employees and customers, Teleperformance is now cooperating with the company Sanas. Sanas develops AI services based on the real-time understanding of spoken language. This means that the AI understands the spoken words without any noticeable delay and can continue to use them immediately.
When the AI is used, the caller hears the AI on the phone, which reproduces the call centre agent's words in their own voice and in accent-free English. Background noise is also a problem in open-plan offices. Noise cancelling is therefore also one of the AI's services. A noise-reducing microphone is no longer necessary because callers only hear the AI voice of the call centre agent.
Sanas presents how this can sound on its own website with voice actors from Asia. Whether this works as perfectly in practice as presented remains to be seen.
Higher customer satisfaction (and lower costs) are the goal
Better understanding is relevant for teleperformance because language problems on the phone lead to misunderstandings and follow-up questions. As a result, the call takes longer than necessary, which leads to higher costs. In turn, Sanas' AI benefits from the high volume of new training data that is continuously generated through the cooperation with Teleperformance.
First of all, it's about accent correction in English. However, Daniel Julien, Managing Director of Teleperfomance, says that other languages, including French and German, will follow. "People all over the world will speak to each other like neighbours," he says in English with a strong French accent.
The skills of humans and AI combined
Teleperformance is taking a different approach to many competitors who rely on AI assistants. Chat assistants help with many issues and, according to the payment service provider Klarna, can replace human interactions with the same level of customer satisfaction. Around a year ago, Klarna announced that two thirds of its support requests were now being processed by AI. These chat assistants were doing the work of 700 full-time employees.
Following this announcement, the shares of Teleperformance, which has around 500,000 service employees, fell sharply in value. However, the company wants to continue focussing on human interaction - supported and improved by AI.
Header image: Shutterstock/Bojan Milinkov
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