For the past two years, artificial intelligence and Voicebots have been invited massively into debates on the future of customer relations.
The boom of voiceboots: an essential trend
According to Gartner, by 2026, more than 30 % of customer interactions will be managed by a Voicebot. In the United States, some companies in the banking sector and telecoms already automatize part of their incoming calls thanks to systems capable of understanding and executing simple requests (blocking of a card, order monitoring, appointment).
In France, the movement is more progressive, but it accelerates under pressure from customer expectations: 24/7 availability, speed of response, reduction of waiting time.
What Voicebots (well) do
Voicebots are particularly effective for:
Repetitive tasks (appointment confirmation, password reset, delivery monitoring),
call qualification (orient quickly towards good service),
Activity peaks (recall campaigns, calls for calls).
In these contexts, they considerably reduce operational costs and improve the fluidity of the customer journey.
… and what they don’t know how to do yet
Despite progress in automatic language processing, Voicebots quickly show their limits:
Lack of empathy in the face of an unhappy client,
Difficulties with ambiguous contexts or incomplete sentences,
User frustration if the route is too scripted or if the exit to a human advisor is too difficult.
A Deloitte study (2023) also shows that 72 % of consumers still prefer to speak to a human advisor when it comes to complex problems.
Towards a hybrid model
Rather than putting the debate in terms of substitution, companies have an interest in adopting a hybrid model:
AI manages simple, repetitive, time -consuming interactions.
Human takes over on situations that require judgment, creativity, or empathy.
This model not only makes it possible to maintain a high quality of service, but also to restore value to the profession of customer advisor, by refocusing it on the solving complex problem.
Impact on customer relations professions
The arrival of Voicebots does not announce the end of the advisers, but an evolution of their skills:
Less repetitive execution, more complexity management.
Fewer scripts, more soft skills (active listening, empathy, negotiation).
A man-machine collaboration which could strengthen the attractiveness of these professions.
It is a paradigm shift: where AI is seen as a threat, it can on the contrary become an opportunity to improve customer satisfaction and quality of life at work.
Conclusion
Voicebots are not a magic wand, but a strategic tool in a context where accessibility and speed have become standards. Their effectiveness is based on a subtle balance: automate what can be, and preserve humans where it is essential.
The future of customer relations will therefore be neither 100 % IA nor 100 % human. It will be hybrid – and the companies that will succeed will be those which will be able to orchestrate this complementarity.
