The future is near
Each time I visit my favorite shopping center, I observe about the same picture: the islet of a store that is leased for BTL shares is occupied by the same employees, but brands change from month to month. The existing tandem of a guy and a girl was always busy, then casually vacuuming the carpet, then calling for a coffee tasting with a subsequent offer to purchase a coffee machine, then handing out samplers of cosmetics, then just looking at something enthusiastically in smartphones and talking to each other about the latest news from Instagram.
Whatever the promotion took place in the shopping center, I could already determine the activity of the employees by eye, and if I were sent to the guys as a mystery shopper, I would be ready to make an assessment for each stage of interaction with me as a client. It is clear that such estimates could not be high. It’s hard to work to the maximum if you are paid an hourly wage. You are like the soldier who is sleeping, and the service is on.
And in another of my visits to the same shopping center, it was as if they pulled me out of my thoughts with the phrase - "Hello, will I give you some coffee?" What? Something clearly changed, and I noticed a girl who had never worked at this point, and on her chest was a badge that blinked unusually in green, indicating that the audio was being recorded.
- What is it with you? - I asked not about coffee, but about the badge.
- This is a voice recorder badge. Recording a conversation helps us improve the quality of service.
That's just it, I thought to myself, and understood the true reason why they first greeted me fully for the first time and offered to try a promotional product.
- Are you listening?
- No, speech is recognized automatically, I only see a report for the day.
Immersed in a coffee tasting, I began to google what it is and how generally such technologies are legal. One of the companies that specializes in speech analytics, Fonemica, interestingly talks about this, and under the guise of a client, I decided to call them to find out firsthand whether it is legal to record conversations.
Firstly, in each shopping center at the entrance there is a sign warning that audio and video recording is being conducted in the premises. It turns out that recording conversations is just as legitimate as video surveillance.
Secondly, the badge itself also blinks so that it is not considered a hidden recorder. Although what is hidden here, if everything around can be recorded on a smartphone so that no one will notice. Only the employee’s speech gets into the analysis, but you can hear me as a client with your ear.
The guys say that they regularly provide notes to customers if they ask for help to figure out if the employee or client was wrong during the conflict.
It seems to me that half of sellers in stores or employees in banks would not be in the way of such a device, and if you take more waiters and hotel managers - even more so.
The technology is as funny as it is simple - speech is recognized as in "Yandex Navigator" or "Alice". And its goal is transparent and clear - to make the work of local employees better.
But where is the right to privacy?
Although we are all used to the fact that the contact center meets us with the phrase “to improve the quality of service, all conversations are recorded.” Logically, retailers want to know what their local employees are doing. And if you recall the scandal with Facebook, which recorded the speech and then openly admitted it, it becomes scary how quickly technologies penetrate into what was left untouched yesterday - our own I.
But if you think even deeper, then every time I, for example, leave my child alone with the nanny, I really want to know if she read him fairy tales or chatted with her friends on the phone. Here, as with the enrichment of uranium - either for the good or the detriment.
Interestingly, at the next technological development, badges will begin to tell employees what to tell me as a client, and in a couple of years we will begin to communicate with robots. And some 20 years ago, only science fiction writers had such scenarios.
And on the account of buying a coffee machine from the same promotion - I seriously think. Apparently it works?
