California tech company comes up with AI app to help English-speaking call center agents sound more convincing to customers
California tech company comes up with AI app to help English-speaking call center agents sound more convincing to customers
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00:00 The call center sector of the business process outsourcing industry or BPO has hugely contributed
00:07 to an estimated 32 billion dollars in industry revenues to the country.
00:11 And yet, this sector grapples with a huge employee turnover dilemma due to discrimination
00:16 and abuse from internationally based customers who see them as people they cannot relate
00:21 to due to speech accents.
00:23 An AI application being developed by a Bayer Tech startup will help call center agents
00:29 sound more convincingly to English speaking customers as Boaz Matt Dibble reports.
00:38 In the global economy, a call to a customer service center will likely be answered by
00:43 someone in a far away part of the world.
00:47 Call center workers can train for months to effectively communicate with customers whose
00:52 native language and culture differ from theirs.
00:55 I can't try that, photographer, photographer, good.
00:59 Despite this training, accents often get in the way, says developer Sharath Narayana.
01:04 There are at least a few instances every single day of his life or her life that they go through
01:10 some level of discrimination and sometimes straight up abuse.
01:14 Narayana is a co-founder of California based Sanus AI whose technology can adjust the way
01:20 a speaker sounds with the goal of making an accent more relatable.
01:25 A call center worker from the Philippines demonstrated.
01:27 Hi, my name is Iggy.
01:29 I'm from Paranaque.
01:31 Hi, my name is Iggy.
01:33 I'm from Paranaque.
01:36 The difference can be subtle, but Narayana says it is helping call center workers avoid
01:41 abuse.
01:42 We're not trying to hide the fact that this person is from India or this person is from
01:45 the Philippines, but this person would sound so clear, so confident and so crisp that the
01:52 other person would like to have a conversation.
01:54 Discrimination and abuse by callers are among the factors leading to high turnover among
01:59 call center workers.
02:02 Narayana himself once worked in such a center, and although he doesn't excuse the behavior
02:06 of callers, he says he understands what's going on.
02:10 When they hear that accent, the first thing that I see is that lack of trust with this
02:14 person.
02:15 I've waited so long for my problem to solve.
02:18 Now I'm connected to somebody that I can't relate to or his voice that I cannot relate
02:22 to.
02:23 Can this person actually solve my problem?
02:25 Sociologist Anish Anish says tools like Sanus can help reduce the burden on call center
02:31 agents.
02:32 Anish, however, worries that it also points to what he says are dehumanizing trends in
02:37 technology, namely erasing diversity.
02:40 Most of our communication is mediated through some technology, but when technology starts
02:45 changing your accent itself, that is transforming you into your own avatar.
02:51 Now the driving force is not developing an understanding between human beings, but the
02:58 driving force is transactional in the sense that things have to get functionally done.
03:05 Narayana says that of the workers with the optional Sanus system installed, 97 percent
03:10 of them are choosing to use it every day.
03:13 Because I was able to listen to one of my calls using Sanus and wow.
03:18 It looks like English is my first language, wherein in fact it's not.
03:23 If there is a technology solution to it, where I don't have to change the way I sound, but
03:28 the other person can understand me very, very clearly, why isn't it a beautiful thing?
03:35 For now, the AI seems to be helping people connect.
03:38 Matt Dibble, VOA News, Palo Alto, California.