Burnout remains a persistent problem in contact centers. Agents log on, expecting bad calls, and that anticipation causes continuous stress.
Recognizing this issue, Cisco Webex released an Agent Burnout Detection tool to sense high-stress levels and disrupt the cycle with a sixty-second mini-break.
During this mini-break, agents can take some quality "me time".
According to the vendor, companies trialing the solution saw stress reports decrease by 13-15 percent, average handle time (AHT) increase by 40-50 percent less than it would have otherwise, and customer satisfaction improve.
So far, so good. But, when piloting the Agent Burnout Detection tool, First Horizon Bank received some criticism on social media.
As part of its pilot, the bank decided to present agents with a montage of family photos alongside their favorite songs during these mini-breaks.
Well-meaning, perhaps? Yet, commentators on social media have labeled the deployment as "bleak", "grim", and a "Black Mirror plot".
Indeed, the comments section on the following bustling X post makes for quite a read.
Last week, I read about one of the bleakest uses for gen AI I've seen yet: First Horizon Bank is rolling out a system to detect when a call center worker was on the brink of "losing it"—and play them an AI-made montage of family photos set to their favorite song to calm them down pic.twitter.com/wFGFh6VsMg
— Brian Merchant (@bcmerchant) June 17, 2024
One person noted: "The notion of building neural nets specifically trained to detect when a human is about to "Lose it" seems like a potentially poor idea that may have unintended consequences."
Meanwhile, one commentator found fault in sharing family photos, stating: "Because family is obviously never ever the source of the trigger right? "
Finally, one commentator wrote: "Somehow, I doubt it will be their actual favorite song either."
