“We can’t lose that human interaction”

Software robots that match the human execution of a business process? Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is becoming an increasingly significant challenge for service providers, required to provide excelling service to customers, build human capital, invest in human resources and win customer-facing projects, all at once.

Bosch Service Centre, overlooking the Albert Docks and Mersey rail tracks, in the home of the Beatles, British horseracing and national football champions, has set themselves apart as a leader in providing service solutions to its clients.

Bosch Service Solutions currently operates across 27 sites in 15 countries, covers 35 languages, and is training associates to gain automation “green belts”, qualifying the critical role in process improvement.

We spoke to Gavin Davies, Operations Manager, and Si-A Choi, Bosch Service Centre Team Leader, to find out how increasing automation impacts the team and their daily operations, and more specifically, how to ensure the right balance of people, training and technology moving forward.

Gavin: I manage LEAN sales operations and customer service of agents and team leaders across 12 countries for Bosch Service Centre. At the moment, my focus is ensuring the right planning and training and development for associates in my team, so that we are equipped to deal with developing projects covering RPA.

Si-A: I am a German-speaking team leader operating 24/7 operations with multi-language skilled agents. I also manage the Bosch UK social media team and ensure quality management across all operating channels.

Gavin: Adaptability is key to my role. I manage operations both internally and externally, so both employee and customer satisfaction are key performance indicators for me. As we move forward with robotic process automation, it’s even more important that I ensure that the right training, people, and technology are aligned to win projects.

Si-A: For me, simplicity is king. The team handles approximately 1,900 interactions a day, such as calls, emails, chat, fax, white mail, and social media, which can vary from simple questions to more complex tasks. This produces a highly stress-prone environment so it’s important to not over-complicate, and most certainly try to keep a level-head and ensure motivation levels stay high.

Gavin: There is a common misconception that RPA will mean less associates. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; RPA causes an evolution of customer service specialists, not less of them. It’s a similar step change to what happened to the banking sector when ATMs were first introduced; everyone thought some people would lose their jobs, but actually, it made them highly skilled in more complex tasks such as arranging mortgages and providing financial support.

Si-A: RPA essentially takes away mundane tasks. For example, if on a daily basis, some associates will manage approximately 60 customer enquiries; 40 percent of these could be transactional and simple in nature, dealing with questions such as ‘where is my nearest dealership?’ or ‘what are the opening hours?’ etc.”… Automation will allow customer service specialists to tackle more complicated enquiries and complex tasks that make the job more fulfilling.

Gavin: The rapid pace of technological development is overwhelming, particularly for an emerging workforce. Millennials were pretty much born with mobile phones in their hands so their generation are more ‘up to speed’ per say. It’s changing the way we work and communicate, particularly in dealing with customers. The majority of our interactions are done through digital and web-forms but we can’t lose that human interaction; this is something that is extremely valuable even for digitally-

Si-A: This is interesting because we recently challenged this in a coding project whereby we manually went through data such as product reviews and feedback on multiple channels and used this to compare with automated coding sets. Although the majority of our analysis was in line with the robotically automated responses, there we some discrepancies. This is something that’s quite important, so sufficient knowledge-based hand-overs between bots and specialists will be a requirement going forward.

Si-A: In the case where we manually went through data set of product reviews and feedback on multiple channels and social media platforms. As the data sets purely coded by a bot could not register emotional interactions, such as sarcasm or humour, the quality of the data coded by our team was more valuable and real. This is something that’s quite important, so even though automation can help a great deal with efficiency, there still is a need of that human touch to see the small differences…

Si-A: This is interesting because we recently challenged this in a coding project whereby we manually went through data such as product reviews and feedback on multiple channels and used this to compare with automated coding sets. Although the majority of our analysis was in line with the robotically automated responses, there we some discrepancies. This is something that’s quite important, so sufficient knowledge-based hand-overs between bots and specialists will be a requirement going forward.

Gavin: Definitely. RPA is process driven. From feasibility assessments to solution design and User Acceptance Testing (UAT), customer service specialist and so-called ‘subject matter experts’ will be included in the journey to delivering a bot and maintaining it.