Voice Automation Gets a Human Touch

It's no secret that consumers have become frustrated with non-native English speakers answering their tech-support calls. To minimize customer-representative interaction, many companies have instituted automated voice services to funnel callers through the appropriate channels, which can often backfire, resulting in angry callers and poor customer support. My own general strategy when faced with an automated maze is to repeatedly scream the word "operator," into the phone, with increasing force and volume until I've sufficiently baffled the system's logic circuits. This brings a human onto the line with about a 70 percent success rate.

To counteract belligerent jerks like myself, some companies like Microsoft have employed a slightly different strategy when it comes to customer satisfaction: His name is Max, and I met him during a support call to Microsoft's Xbox Live customer service line.

"Hey, thanks for calling Xbox customer support," Max says in a sort of apathetic-slacker parlance: prompt yet uncaring. Human yet artificial. "My name is Max, and there are several things I can help you with." Max then goes on to enumerate his list of support directives.

By this time I'm so intrigued that a voice system could be programmed to emulate the voice patterns of a company's user base that I momentarily forget my angry customer routine. "Oh, okay," I say, disarmed and helpless. "Account transfer, please." And that, as they say, was that. My issue was resolved, not only without any automated sass, but without browbeating some poor soul over the phone.

We tape-recorded Max (along with other customer service bots discussed later in this story) so you can hear for yourself: