2024-06-18 09:24:54
Good news for call center operators? SoftBank has announced that it is developing voice-altering technology to protect employees from customers who yell or nag at them.
Dealing with angry customers can be extremely stressful for call center employees. The Japanese company SoftBank Corp thinks they have a solution: software based on artificial intelligence that softens the tone of voice. The “emotion suppression” system aims to alleviate the stress felt by call center operators, who often bear the brunt of users’ frustrations.
AI to cancel negative emotions
The objective is to reduce the psychological burden on call center operators by changing the voices of angry and aggressive customers to calmer tones. The Tokyo-based company says the goal is to reduce the growing stress levels of call center operators who are dealing with a surge in dissatisfied customers. SoftBank Corp, the telecoms arm of the Japanese conglomerate led by the billionaire Masayoshi Sonaims to commercialize its new technology by 2026. “With this solution, we aim to maintain good relationships with customers, through healthy communication, while ensuring the psychological well-being of workers.” SoftBank’s system currently only works in Japanese, but the company said it is considering developing versions in other languages. The ” Emotion Canceling Voice Conversation Engine ” was designed in collaboration with the University of Tokyo.
The AI that whispered in the operators’ ears
SoftBank employee Toshiyuki Nakatani said he got the idea following watching a TV show highlighting the rise in verbal abuse once morest call center workers. “If customers’ screams sounded like Kitaro Eyeball Dad, it would be less scary,” he said, referring to a character in the popular anime series. No KitaroThe technology works in two stages. First, it uses AI voice processing to identify angry callers, and analyze the characteristics of their speech. Then, it integrates acoustic characteristics of “non-threatening” voices to create a calmer, more natural tone.To achieve this, the AI was trained on over 10,000 voice data samples, with 10 actors (male and female) recording over 100 common phrases expressing various emotions such as anger and frustration. The technology does not transform the caller’s words, it changes the intonation to make it less aggressive. SoftBank assures that the system does not completely eliminate all traces of anger, allowing operators to understand the situation and react appropriately.
Japan faces rising aggression
SoftBank’s move comes at a time when Japan is grappling with recurring problems of aggressive behavior toward customer service operators. The need for such a solution is evident in a recent survey by UA Zensen, Japan’s largest industrial union, which found that nearly 47% of service sector workers have experienced harassment from customers in the past two years. More than 100 respondents said they had sought psychiatric help. “With this solution, we aim to maintain good relationships with customers through healthy communication while ensuring the psychological well-being of our workers,” SoftBank said. Meanwhile, the government is considering legislation to strengthen worker protections by introducing an ordinance banning “abusive and unreasonable demands that harm the work environment.”
According to Roy Larke, an expert on Japanese consumer behavior, “Japanese consumers have always been very demanding in terms of quality. Highly polite and attentive customer service is widely taken for granted throughout the retail and hospitality industry. “Asked why Japan might be experiencing this increase in aggression, he offers a few hypotheses, including a response to some form of generalized anxiety: “Factors such as higher stress levels caused by inflation, the aggression of social networks or the influence of foreign tourists might contribute to the increase in customer harassment,” he tells the average SCMP. And why not replace operators with AI? Impossible according to Toshiyuki Nakatani: “AI is good at handling complaints and can do it for long hours, but what angry customers want is a human to apologize to them.” AI “will become a mental shield that will protect operators.”
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