Washing, cutting, laying - there is no longer a hand free for the phone to ring.
A disruptive factor that master hairdresser Mesuda Gazibara still serves as promptly as possible: "That is service, and I think the customer can expect that too," emphasizes the sole proprietor.
She is a customer herself, for example in a Hamburg “Spa & Fitness Club”, where she recovers from standing for hours with her torso bent forward.
If it works with the back-friendly course, which is often booked out nine days in advance, but on the other hand cannot be canceled without risk.
When Gazibara once caught a professional appointment and canceled it via app 24 hours before the back hour, the club responded promptly: “Thank you Mesuda for taking the time to cancel the course.” From Gazibara’s point of view, that was an exaggeratedly submissive one Wording that tipped into the opposite with the award of a penalty point, known in German as "Strike".
The long-time club member did not feel that he was being taken seriously, picked up his cell phone - and ended up with a semi-automated voice assistant.
This offered English-language services, beauty or trainer appointments to choose from, but no complaints office.
Gazibara pressed some keys, read from a whispering voice from the tape that “unfortunately there were no employees available at the moment” and did not give up: “It took forever and three days, I tried it again and again,” she says.
In the end, it was actually a person who showed understanding, looked into the system and booked one of the desired appointments.
A sedative pill for the angry customer, but not a permanent solution: "I am dissatisfied with the new booking system," said Gazibara.
Service is outsourced everywhere
A dissatisfaction that does not leave the service staff at the other end of the line without a trace: "You can tell when you are greeted", says Christine Loerke, spokeswoman for the leisure company David Lloyd Leisure (DLL), to which Gazibara's sports club now also belongs. The spectrum ranges from “Well, finally someone answers” to “That’s easy today”, from rumbling annoyed to “well-behaved and friendly: there are people on the other side who cannot help it,” emphasizes the spokeswoman. The dialogue system relieves the employees by pre-sorting. However, it has neither reduced the volume of calls nor speaking time - especially not in times of a pandemic: "The need to speak has increased," says Loerke. At least with the peoplewho did not evade communication with the machine and remained patiently on hold. For the employees this means: "The consultant needs empathic instinct, but also knowledge of the content, this is not a job for simple assistants."
It is typical for the industry that a spokeswoman and not a service person is available to answer questions. The consultants stand between customers and employers, recently also between machine and recording and are exposed to considerable psychological pressure, knows Regina Zimmerling from the Verdi union. "Monitoring is increasing and interaction is becoming more difficult: When customers have the AI component behind them, their frustration is often great." It would help to identify more precisely when you are talking to technology and when to talk to people. “This is not always apparent to the customer,” says the trade unionist. The service staff that Verdi represents mainly work in call centers and want to remain anonymous: “People who report on the working conditions in the call center do not only have problems with their employer.The clients also exert pressure. "
"Customer wants one hundred percent solution - and not ninety percent"
You talk to call centers much more often than you think, for example with a Corona hotline. Service is being outsourced everywhere and is constantly being restructured. Digitization makes communication more technological for employees, but not more human. "You should always remain friendly and not show your own feelings - regardless of what you have to listen to," says Zimmerling. The unexcited, consistently friendly tone is exactly the characteristic of voice computers, which experienced a real hype under the keyword "chatbots" five years ago, says communications consultant Armin Sieber. Back then, the author of “Dialogroboter” dealt with natural language human-machine interaction in a research project at the University of Regensburg and came to the conclusion: “Bots are actually pretty stupid machines,The speech dialogue systems are much more interesting phenomena. "