Customers Frustrated with AI Bbaengbbaengi, Call Center Agents in Distress [Bbaengbbaengi AI Call Center]①

Incomplete AI, Growing Customer Complaints
Workers Facing Increased Labor Intensity
Authorities Take Action
"Improving Easy Communication with Human Agents"

Editor's Note“It’s a ‘person,’ not AI, dear customer. How can I assist you?”
Call centers, which everyone has used at least once, have long been places where friendly agents answered calls and resolved issues. However, financial company call centers have gradually become inconvenient for financial consumers. The introduction of incomplete ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) consultation services’ has ironically delayed the problem-solving process and increased the time consumers experience. This is the irony that emerged as banks, card companies, and other financial institutions replaced call center agents with AI consultation services. Accordingly, Asia Economy aims to look into the inside story of financial company call centers from various perspectives, including financial consumers and workers.

# Office worker Kim Ji-hye (31, female) had an unpleasant experience when she contacted a card company call center after a long time. She wanted to speak directly with a human agent regarding her inquiry about applying for the National Happiness Card, but no matter how much she searched through AI chatbots, she could not find any way to consult directly with a human agent. After several attempts and online portal searches, she finally discovered that she could only connect to a human agent by going through the ‘visible Automated Response System (ARS)’ screen. Kim said, “At first, I thought I hadn’t heard the ARS number that connects directly to a human agent, so I wasted time making multiple calls for no reason,” expressing her frustration.

# Housewife Shim Myung-hee (61, female), who uses a card product from an internet-only bank, recently received a notification that about $30 had been charged on her card at an overseas shopping mall she had never seen before. Shocked, Shim tried to connect to the call center through the bank’s application (app) at dawn but soon found herself in a difficult situation. She inquired with the chatbot but kept receiving irrelevant answers. Although chat consultation was available, she was not familiar with typing, so she ultimately had to ask her child to resolve the issue. Shim said, “I thought this is exactly how elderly people who see kiosks (KIOSK) for the first time would feel,” adding, “I thought I was relatively good at using smartphones compared to others my age, but I was embarrassed.”

As AI-based consultation services such as chatbots and voice bots rapidly expand in financial company call centers, paradoxically, the inconvenience for financial consumers is increasing. Although introduced with the intention of helping consumers resolve complaints anytime and anywhere 24/7, functional limitations have instead amplified consumer discomfort.

“Tired of AI loops” Customers Express Frustration

Park Hee-jun (35), an office worker living in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, said, “I called the call center to set up automatic transfer accounts differently for two cards I have at a card company, but instead of solving the problem, I was repeatedly connected only to an AI chatbot that gave irrelevant answers, and this simple issue took 40 minutes.” He added, “Even simple tasks like this can’t be handled, and closing consultation channels only increased inconvenience. I spoke curtly to the human agent out of frustration, but I feel like I took out my anger on the wrong target.”

This is not happening only in Korea. According to a survey conducted by global Customer Relationship Management (CRM) company Salesforce in March-April last year targeting 6,058 financial company customers worldwide, only 21% of bank customers were satisfied with the digital experience of financial companies. The element considered most problematic was chatbots (39%). Chatbots are classified as the representative AI consultation service introduced by most financial companies in their call centers.

Human Agents Also ‘Embarrassed’

It is not only financial consumers who feel discomfort. Human agents are also struggling with the rapidly expanded AI consultation services. Current human agents met during Asia Economy’s reporting unanimously say that labor intensity has increased since the introduction of AI consultation services.

They bear the full brunt of financial consumers’ irritation and anger, such as “Why do you make me go through endless loops when AI doesn’t even understand?” Problems that could be easily resolved through communication and empathy become so-called ‘complaint calls’ after passing through AI chatbots and voice bots, increasing the burden, according to frontline human agents.

In fact, a panel survey conducted by Asia Economy through the polling specialist Embrain with 500 adults nationwide (aged 19?69) showed that 26.2% of respondents felt ‘discomfort’ when connected to a human agent after AI consultation. Additionally, 26.4% answered that they ‘trust human agents more than AI consultation.’

Employment insecurity due to AI expansion is also tightening the noose around call center human agents. This is already a reality. One commercial bank reduced its six call center outsourcing companies to four last December and sent layoff notices to about 240 agents. Although the situation was temporarily resolved due to opposition from labor unions and civil society, the industry speculates that large-scale layoffs in the future are only a matter of time.

This trend is accelerating as financial companies increase investment in AI. A commercial bank president said, “It is true that the number of (human) agents in call centers has significantly decreased since the introduction of AI consultation services,” adding, “We are discussing with the board of directors a plan to make mid-to-long-term investments amounting to hundreds of billions of won.”

Experts advise not to forget that AI consultation services in financial company call centers still only perform auxiliary roles such as simple inquiries and lookups. They agree that the future direction of AI consultation services should not be to ‘replace’ human agents but to help quickly resolve issues through harmonious role-sharing between human agents and AI, each with different characteristics.

Authorities Take Action to “Improve Easy Communication with Human Agents Besides AI”

Financial authorities have also begun to actively improve the inconvenience of AI consultation for financial consumers. The Financial Supervisory Service held the ‘5th Fair Finance Promotion Committee’ last month and decided to improve procedures so that elderly customers can easily communicate with human agents as well as AI consultation when using financial company customer centers.

Asia Economy plans to explore the inside story of such call centers over 10 installments starting today. First, through a mobile panel survey conducted by polling specialist Macromill Embrain, it will examine how actual financial consumers evaluate financial company call center AI consultation services differently from common perceptions and what they think is needed.

The reality of AI consultation services felt on the ground will also be conveyed through the vivid voices of human agents struggling in the field. The labor environment of human agents being encroached upon by AI will be substantiated with concrete evidence. Additionally, the ‘reality’ heard from a medical anthropologist who has studied call center sites for over a decade and the ‘future’ of AI consultation services discussed by frontline bankers at the AI forefront will also be covered.