Call centres: Are you talking to AI?
6 Minute English
BBC
4.6 ⢠1.3K Ratings
đď¸ 19 December 2024
âąď¸ 6 minutes
đď¸ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Could AI make call centre queues less painful?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 6 Minute English from BBC LearningEnglish.com |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Phil. |
| 0:13.0 | And I'm Pippa. Have you ever phoned up a company and had your call held in a queue? |
| 0:19.0 | If you have, then you've probably heard messages like this. |
| 0:23.5 | Hello, your call is important to us. You are number 89 in the queue. If you'd like to continue |
| 0:29.4 | to hold press 1, if you'd like to return to the main menu press 0. How do you feel when your |
| 0:34.6 | phone call is put on hold, Phil? |
| 0:40.0 | Oh, frustrated usually. |
| 0:44.6 | Although I do like it when there's a number saying how many people are in front of you. |
| 0:45.3 | That's good. |
| 0:50.7 | Well, when your call is finally connected, it's usually a call centre worker you'll speak to, |
| 0:56.8 | a real live person who'll hopefully fix your problem. But increasingly, this work is now done using artificial intelligence or AI. And this is causing problems in countries like |
| 1:03.3 | India and the Philippines, where call centre jobs make up a big part of the economy. |
| 1:08.5 | In this programme, we'll be asking who's really in charge at the call |
| 1:12.7 | centre, humans or AI. As always, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary. And remember, |
| 1:20.2 | you can read along with the program and find the list of new words and phrases by visiting |
| 1:25.7 | our website, BBC learningenglish.com. |
| 1:30.0 | But now I have a question for you, Phil. |
| 1:33.1 | Around the world, numbers of call centre workers have grown rapidly in recent years. |
| 1:38.3 | If you're listening to this, maybe you're a call centre worker yourself. |
| 1:42.5 | So approximately how many people work in call centres globally |
| 1:46.7 | fill? Is it A, 7 million, B, 17 million or C, 27 million? I think B, 17 million. Okay, well, you'll have to |
... |
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