Many consumers have had this experience: after encountering a problem with an online purchase and wanting to return it, they search through the entire app but cannot find an entrance to human customer service; after sending “transfer me to a human” more than a dozen times to the AI customer service system, it only keeps replying, “I understand how you feel.”
According to a report today by the Voice of China under China Media Group, to standardize coordination between human and AI customer service, China’s first national standard focused on their coordination mechanism, Requirements for Coordination Between Human and Intelligent Customer Service in Customer Contact Services, will take effect on September 1.
The report said that with the development of artificial intelligence, more and more merchants are choosing to adopt AI customer service to handle pre-sales and after-sales interactions at lower cost. An e-commerce AI service provider said that one human customer service agent costs more than 3,000 yuan per month, while its annual AI customer service package is priced at 10,000 yuan, saving more than 70% of the cost.
Digital economy scholar Liu Xingliang said that besides reducing costs, AI customer service can also indirectly increase the rate at which users withdraw complaints. Some companies deliberately have AI customer service go around in circles when handling user complaints, exhausting users’ energy and patience.
China’s first national standard focused on the coordination mechanism between human and AI customer service, Requirements for Coordination Between Human and Intelligent Customer Service in Customer Contact Services, will take effect on September 1. The standard clearly defines the respective service scopes of AI and human customer service. When users need human intervention, they must be able to reach a human customer service representative smoothly:
The entry point must be clear and cannot be hidden behind layer upon layer of menus;
The division of responsibilities must be sound: simple questions can be handled by AI, while complex disputes must be promptly transferred to human representatives;
Human-AI switching must be handled properly; consumers must not be forced to repeat their problems, and once the conditions are met, the system must automatically transfer the case to a human representative.
The report also said that although Requirements for Coordination Between Human and Intelligent Customer Service in Customer Contact Services is a recommended national standard and does not constitute a legal basis for penalties, it will serve as an important benchmark for the industry, encouraging companies to improve customer service and giving users a standard to rely on.