Overview
1. Automation Risk
2. User Poll
3. Growth
4. Wages
5. Volume
Decription
Resources
Comments

Customer Service Representatives

AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
82%
risk level
POLLING
71%
Based on 479 votes
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
-3.6 %
by year 2032
WAGES
$37,780
or $18.16 per hour
Volume
2,879,840
as of 2022
SUMMARY
JOB SCORE
2.2/10

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Comments (24)

Automation risk

82% (Imminent Risk)

Imminent Risk (81-100%): Occupations in this level have an extremely high likelihood of being automated in the near future. These jobs consist primarily of repetitive, predictable tasks with little need for human judgment.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Negotiation

  • Persuasion

  • Social Perceptiveness

User poll

71% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted that it's probable this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 82% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Customer Service Representatives will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?






Sentiment

The following graph(s) are included wherever there is a substantial amount of votes to render meaningful data. These visual representations display user poll results over time, providing a significant indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Very slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Customer Service Representatives' job openings is expected to decline 3.6% by 2032

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2021 and 2031
Updated projections are due 09-2023.

Wages

Very low paid relative to other professions

In 2022, the median annual wage for 'Customer Service Representatives' was $37,780, or $18 per hour

'Customer Service Representatives' were paid 18.4% lower than the national median wage, which stood at $46,310

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Significantly greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2022 there were 2,879,840 people employed as 'Customer Service Representatives' within the United States.

This represents around 1.9% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 51 people are employed as 'Customer Service Representatives'.

Job description

Interact with customers to provide basic or scripted information in response to routine inquiries about products and services. May handle and resolve general complaints. Excludes individuals whose duties are primarily installation, sales, repair, and technical support.

SOC Code: 43-4051.00

Resources

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Comments

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SYDNEY MERRILL (Highly likely) says
I WORK THIS JOB AND EVERYDAY WE GET POINTLESS CALLS FOR ISSUES THAT CAN BE SCREENED BYA COMPUTER TO DETERMINE IF IT IS EVEN ELIGIBLE FOR A REPAIR TECHNICIAN TO GET OUT THERE WHICH WOULD BE ATIME AND MOENY SAVER FOR EMPLOYEES AND CLIENTS.
Jan 11, 2024 at 08:27 PM
Ghizlane (Highly likely) says
This is a task that Can definitely be replaced by IA. The thing is that for now, IAs don't have the ability to empathize. Once they'll figure out how to show some soft skills m, CSRs will be replaced for sure.
May 27, 2023 at 05:55 PM
Mr Umphries (Low) says
I think it's very unlikely. I've been in the industry for over 25 years, in different capacities and levels. I can confirm that customers want to talk to a human being who understands them, not some automated script just going through the paces.

I've seen this done by so many colleagues who were not committed to the task, or who even sounded like robots themselves.
Jan 13, 2023 at 06:54 AM
Daniel M. (Highly likely) says
There are chat bots already. This type of technology will only evolve with time.
Jun 15, 2022 at 04:38 AM
JOHN MARK H. MANUEL (Highly likely) says
It is highly likely because people in the 4IR are most likely to be tech-savvy.

With their technical skills, they can be assisted using applications. Nowadays, these are used to address service issues mechanically.
Jun 11, 2022 at 05:04 PM
Raj (Low) says
Talking to a real person can be more helpful than talking to a robot because a robot is limited to its programming. However, a human feels more satisfied when speaking to another human.
Mar 06, 2022 at 10:31 PM
Christmas (Uncertain) says
Human needs human contact
Jun 20, 2021 at 05:34 PM
cagatay (Highly likely) says
I am currently working at one of the biggest online shopping site in Turkey and I can tell you that robots or AI would even do a better job in this role. Companies are already started looking for replacement of human affect.
Sep 27, 2020 at 11:19 AM
Dhiraj Temkar (Highly likely) says
Based on Recommendation ML models and various routing ML models. Its highly likely that these jobs can be automated in a sense of more repetitions, similarities in a solution of a problem to some other solution for some other problem and the availability of enormous data of employee logs on what actions were taken to solve a particular problem.
Jul 19, 2020 at 12:52 PM
CC (Highly likely) says
This will defiantly be automated in the next 20 years. I have worked in call centres for over 5 years. Listen to Google Duplex A.I. assistant.
Jul 04, 2020 at 07:28 PM
Tar (Low) says
I see my company struggling with automation of my work. Started a few years ago and we are still only at the beginning. It lasts long and helps only keep our workload on acceptable level, helps coping with increasing workload, preventing only very few repetitive task types.
May 10, 2020 at 12:03 PM
anon - CSR (Moderate) says
I think it depends on the complexity of the products or services but I can see most of these jobs being automated
Mar 10, 2020 at 05:39 AM
Lori (Uncertain) says
I think us humans give Customer Service Industry a personal touch! People do not want to have to deal with a robot!
Mar 04, 2020 at 07:39 PM
Ramon G Valdez Jr (Highly likely) says
The Ai technology is already here and being used widely in the customer service space. When current company execs realize how flawless it is in the way it handles situations, all human CSR's will be having to look for another means of work. I was an happy & unhappy CSR for nearly 15 years and found a type of work that will not be replace by AI or any robot.
Oct 28, 2019 at 02:47 PM
MC Lacson (Low) says
Robots don't have empathetic skills.
Sep 25, 2019 at 02:24 AM
Sarah (No chance) says
We do need customer service representives to ask a question about a product for them via in-person, email or telephone. That's why robots shouldn't take this job away.
Jun 25, 2019 at 10:03 PM
Kurt says
googlebot phone call https://youtu.be/D5VN56jQMWM soon you won’t know the difference.
Aug 27, 2019 at 04:56 AM
Anon (Moderate) says
The number of representatives required will probably be cut down drastically as automated phone systems improve. Furthermore, the main group that can't use automate systems efficiently are seniors, and 20 years from now most seniors will probably be a fair bit more tech savvy than those of today.
Jun 22, 2019 at 03:02 AM
Viktor says
Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang says call center employees are doomed. Please comment on that, if you're in the industry.
Apr 11, 2019 at 08:26 PM
Sir Prize says
This is a comment. It depends on the complexity of the product and customer relations, but I think it is highly likely that the future of customer service will be automated.
Oct 17, 2019 at 10:43 PM
Lori says
I think people want to talk to a person and the future will not be all robots. I think it will be predominately humans that we want to talk to.
Mar 04, 2020 at 07:41 PM
im not replaceable says
i think this will be highly dependent on the type of customer service being provided and the services/products being offered by the company as a whole that are requiring the customer support. automated phone systems have been a thing for a long time now, and for just as long, there have been resources available and sought out on how to avoid those systems and actually talk to someone. just search for "speak to a human"...

one thing ai will never be able to do is actually "be" human. while there are plenty of scenarios where "acting human-like with a high degree of accuracy" will be more than sufficient, and probably preferable than paying for a human to provide the same mundane tasks which really should be automated, if actually connecting with your customers in a real way would have any value to your business, hiring a real person to make those connections cant be substituted easily.
May 18, 2023 at 08:48 PM
Matthew Watson says
I would say this job needs alot of judgement as many give false complaints or they have real problems. This job is about reporting and solving problems. However many tasks are repetitive so this job could go as well. Perhaps it could evolve
Mar 19, 2019 at 04:41 AM
Ramon G Valdez Jr says
AI technology will replace human involvement in the Customer service industry very soon. With algorithmic tech the AI will be able to respond to sense of happiness to hostility and will be able to respond sounding like a human being. Just take a listen to this AI clip from Google - https://youtu.be/D5VN56jQMWM
Oct 28, 2019 at 03:03 PM

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