[Exclusive] Spent Trillions on AI, but... "Only 20% Consultation Satisfaction" [Bbaengbbaengi AI Call Center]②

Our Survey on Financial Company Call Center AI Consultation Service Satisfaction
40% Dissatisfied with Call Center AI Service
Nearly Half of Respondents Say
"Having Many AI Services Is Not Customer-Oriented"

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 incomplete ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) consultation service’ has emerged, but ironically, the problem-solving process and time perceived by financial consumers have only been delayed. This is the irony that has arisen as banks, card companies, and other financial sectors replace human agents in call centers 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.

Although the financial sector makes large-scale investments in artificial intelligence (AI) every year, the satisfaction level of financial consumers with call center AI consultation services is only 20%. AI consultation services are introduced under the pretext of ‘fast and convenient complaint resolution,’ but in reality, they fail to meet this expectation in call centers, increasing financial consumers’ inconvenience.

According to a panel survey conducted by Asia Economy on the 6th, commissioned to the public opinion research firm Embrain, targeting 500 adults nationwide (aged 19 to 69), only 21.6% of respondents said they were satisfied with the AI consultation services of financial company call centers (19.8% satisfied, 1.8% very satisfied). On the other hand, 39.4% expressed dissatisfaction (30.6% dissatisfied, 8.8% very dissatisfied), and 39% responded ‘neutral.’

In particular, financial consumers felt frustrated with AI consultation services that are not as smooth as human agents. The most common reason for dissatisfaction with AI consultation services (multiple responses allowed) was ‘AI such as chatbots and voice recognition does not understand my requests,’ at 73.6%. The next was ‘the process of connecting to a human agent has become complicated and difficult,’ at 56.9%.

Additionally, 37.6% of respondents said they felt ‘less trust compared to connecting with a human agent,’ and 34% said ‘using AI services such as chatbots and voice recognition is complicated and difficult.’ Notably, a significant number of people in their 30s (34.1%) and 40s (31.1%) as well as the elderly reported difficulties using AI consultation systems.

Many also said that the time required to solve problems has increased since the expansion of AI consultation services. When asked ‘How has the time to resolve issues changed compared to when only human agents were available?’ 42.6% of respondents answered ‘it has become longer,’ while only 27% said ‘it has become shorter.’ The remaining 30.4% responded ‘about the same.’

Given this situation, the majority of financial consumers still prefer to connect with human agents. 83.2% of respondents chose human agents as the most satisfactory consultation method among financial company options. Satisfaction with AI chatbots was only 7%, and satisfaction with AI agents was 5.6%.

Furthermore, 89.8% of respondents said that connecting to human agents remains necessary, while only 2.4% said it is unnecessary. The main reasons for needing human connection were ‘there are many issues that AI services cannot yet resolve’ at 74.2%, and ‘AI services still do not understand my requests’ at 54.1%.

Extensive use of AI functions also negatively affects the image of financial companies. When asked about the image of financial companies that heavily use AI functions such as chatbots in their call centers, 45.6% of respondents said they are ‘not customer-oriented.’ Only 12.2% said they are ‘customer-oriented,’ and 42.2% responded ‘neutral.’

This survey was conducted by Asia Economy, commissioned to Macromill Embrain, from July 12 to 16, with a sampling error of ±4.38 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.