Srinath Sridharan, business consultant and freelance market commentator, writes an opinion on the problems brands cause when they claim to use AI / ML when basic processes are not working.
From a consumer perspective, he shares his experience of using one of the largest OTT applications in India and wonder if all customer data can be read by a broadband provider from the embedded or in-use applications.
He also highlights that human interaction is more valuable to a consumer than AI and ML interaction
I am not a techie or a deep techie. I am also not a patient consumer, especially when it comes to solving technology-related problems. I would rather look at brands that claim to be able to remotely troubleshoot, or offer anything that reduces human intervention or even remote requests. As long as your own technical skills can solve my problems your own brands create for consumers in the first place! But that reverie has recently been shaken.
I have had a subscription to a global OTT player since its launch in India. The app has been linked to my secondary email ID. During the lockdown, the platform’s ability to create content was also demonstrated, along with its technical ability to deliver different content to different screens (phone, tablet, TV) at the same time.
But that’s where the good part of the story ends here!
My TV is connected to broadband provided by the largest technologically disruptive brand India (or even the world) has seen in the field. The broadband subscription was tied to my primary email ID and the OTT app that was bundled with that broadband had worked just fine until recently.
The tricky one
For the past 2 months I’ve been wondering why the app won’t allow me to sign in from my tablet when the kids are streaming videos in this app on my TV. Surprising considering that I was in the app’s highest subscription block!
When we were trying to find out, we called his call center and the manager suspected my problem could be due to the recent RBI dictation about recurring credit card payments.
Well that was neither the real problem nor the solution! I had to try to get in touch with my broadband customer service team. Try and test like I did through the application, their WhatsApp chat, their acclaimed chatbot, their voice chat, as well as the call center could or should have. My problem seemed to be outside of his jurisdiction. Nothing worked.
After talking extensively with the OTT brand, I thought that the broadband provider had canceled my OTT subscription for the OTT basic rate that the broadband provider was offering as a gift. And hence I had to try reaching my broadband provider, to ask someone to solve this issue. Once again, I was out of luck with contacting a human! This experience only led to brand dissonance and disappointment.
Probably because AI engines still don’t understand the frustration or emotion in the consumer’s voice, they’re missing out on the critical part of the consumer complaint process: letting the consumer vent, acknowledge the problem, and then fix it.
All I wanted was to just disconnect my OTT subscription (linked to my secondary email) from my broadband. Unfortunately, you could be one of the few consumers who had a problem so simple that the giant’s troubleshooting simulations might not even have thought of it.
The larger issue
But then I’m a simpleton and not an expert in databases or building AI / ML. Suddenly I have a new (additional) concern about this persistent problem: How can a broadband provider unsubscribe that I have with another provider? (OTT) and override my decision for an OTT subscription, especially if this OTT is not linked to the registered email of the broadband subscriber and if my payment order is marked with my OTT subscription.
How much customer data can a broadband provider read from the embedded or usage-linked applications?
AI, Brands, Consumers, Dilemma, Ethics
In 1950 Alan Turing invented the “thinking machine” for the first time. Since then, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made great strides.
The field of AI is constantly evolving with the evolving technology and performance of technological computing. While it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where AI is currently, it’s much easier to describe what it certainly isn’t. Robot that can do things better than a very intelligent person and that this robot knows everything and can answer any question.
AI refers to computer programs that process various analyzes and make decisions based on predefined criteria. One of the long-term goals of AI is to be fluent and able to communicate effectively; At this time, chatbots and machine learning-based speech processors cannot yet infer the meaning of human statements or understand the nuances. The most decent AI systems are wonderful products that follow processes defined by intelligent people. AI systems cannot make decisions themselves!
AI is able to do many things that humans simply cannot, such as compute huge sums of money or examine huge amounts of data. It is a legitimate concern that many have about the role humans would play once these thinking machines were able to operate independently.
In machine learning (ML), which includes deep learning and neural networks, an algorithm is presented with a lot of “training data,” the examples from which the algorithm learns. The important point is that it will still be categorized by people until ML can do the job on its own. Top-notch ML algorithms learn from your computer’s memory and use and run statistical models. When (most) people (including me) think of AI, they generally confuse it with ML!
Brands get carried away by their exuberance in showing their ability to use financial resources to invest in technology to solve what they see as “all consumer problems”. This is the first mistake. Unfortunately, the consumer is caught between two stool technology and customer service processes!
There’s a lesson here for marketers: Program your processes for robustness, as if the consumer is dumb and doesn’t know how to use it. But treat consumers, including angry ones, like smart people. The vanity of the consumer is the real reality of the checkout! After all, you have to make a decision, stupid customers buy your products or intelligent ones? Choose carefully, for your consumer is watching and listening!
For me, the moral of this unsolved OTTBroadband story is that until there was a significant improvement in AI / ML and brands adopting them responsibly, human interaction would still be required to resolve the problems posed by them or by these machines on the first place!
To quote one of the most astute consumer activists in the history of product development and disruptive consumption, Steve Jobs: “ Start with the customer experience and work back to the technology.”
Concerns about how AI will be used by brands to impact consumers and the ethical dilemma and how society shapes its acceptance and use of AI are open to debate. Until then, the only AI / ML I should probably stick to is the local Marathi phrase “Aai, mi kay sangu?”
