Hi, this is Alex from the customer service aid.
How are you today?
Great to hear.
I'm doing very well.
Thank you very much for asking.
So how can I help you today?
I'm so sorry about that, I'll be glad to help you.
Can I get your full name, phone number and address to check in on that order?
What you just heard was a demonstration of a software known as sanas.
It's a startup for
call center workers that can make their voice sound more American.
Gee, I wonder why companies would have any interest in that.
Now, if that concept seems familiar, that's because it is.
The 2018 film, sorry to bother you, had a nearly identical premise.
In fact, here's a clip from the trailer.
>> This is telemarketing, stick to the script.
>> Hello Mr. Davidson, cash a screen here.
Sorry to bother.
>> Let me give you a tip, you wanna make some money here?
Use your white voice.
>> My white voice?
>> I'm never talking about Will Smith's wife, like this young blood.
>> Hey Mr. Kramer, this is Langston from regal view.
As always, we'll be getting that out to you right away.
>> Now, going back to the real life software Sanas,
it's a startup founded by three former Stanford students.
Sanas describes its approach as accent matching and advertises on its website
that it can improve understanding by 31% and customer satisfaction by 21%.
According to materials offered by the company to SFGate,
the company claims to have garnered about $132 million worth of funding thus far.
So, before I give in more details, Jenk, I'm curious what you think about this.
>> So I'm a little split on it except for their BS explanation,
which I found to be highly various, which I'm gonna break down for you in a minute.
But they say that quote improves understanding by 31% and
customer satisfaction by 21%.
So that's your playing Devil's advocate.
So, is it possible that people really do understand it better if
you put it in an accent that is similar to theirs?
Yeah, of course that's possible, right?
And so is that gonna help customer service?
Yeah, I guess it would help customer service.
But then you're kinda doing it by erasing people's identity.
That's uncomfortable.
And really what you're really trying to sell for here is,
you could have the same accent if you put the call center in Nebraska.
>> Yes, but they don't wanna do that.
Why don't they wanna do that Jenk?
>> Because it's cheaper to do it in Bangalore.
>> It's cheaper to exploit underpaid labor in another country.
Let's be absolutely clear about what they do.
>> Yeah, I mean, look, I think there's a couple ways to spin that one too.
And folks in India also need jobs and they do speak english, right?
And so they're taking advantage of that.
And a lot of people outsource that way.
But let's keep it real, it's outsourcing that's that sense of this.
>> Yeah, and look, while I do see some Libs make the argument that,
like, no, it's actually great that labor is being
exploited in countries like India Bangladesh, China.
Like they argue, we're providing jobs for
people who otherwise would be living in poverty, but like,
don't try to put some pr spin on what's really taking place here.
Companies in the United States are enjoying tax cuts,
deregulation, but it's not enough for them.
They also have to outsource the jobs because they wanna save on labor.
So it doesn't cut into their profit margins.
And I listen while this software might make it somewhat easier to understand.
The problem is when you call a call center in another country and
they're not really equipped to help you with what you need help on, right?
It's not about the accent making it difficult.
It's that sometimes it's difficult to just understand each other because it's not
their first language, right?
So you might ask a question and they don't even know what you mean.
Like, I've had that problem happen quite a bit.
So they're trying to like put a band Aid on it with this software.
I don't think it's the end all be all solution.
I do think it's better to have actual call centers here in the United States.
>> Yeah, I've got complicated feelings about the outsourcing thing.
But okay, but back to this in particular,
there's a lot of different ways that they put band aids on it.
I've actually had a couple of these calls in the last couple of days been calling
credit card companies and stuff.
And it will be somebody with an Indian accent honestly, and they'll say, and
I'm from Texas, and I think interesting that you added that you're from Texas or
California, it happened twice in a row.
And I'm like, so they found a ton of Indians with an Indian accent in
the middle of Texas and in the middle of California, maybe, or
maybe they told you to say that even though you're in Mumbai.
>> And so to me, it shows that companies want this software,
not because they're actually interested in enhancing
communication between the customers and the call center.
They're just worried about getting backlash for
outsourcing the jobs to whatever country, right?
Like they're obviously trying to lie to the customers about that.
And that's a great point because saying that you're from Texas or
California when it doesn't appear that you are.
Doesn't help the accent issue and the communication issue at all, but
it does put a band Aid on outsourcing your job.
Okay, so, okay, now,
when I saw that this was a story from Stanford Grads who did a start a startup,
first of all, which Stanford Grad isn't doing a startup anyways.
I was like, I'm sure they're south Asian and it turns out from their names,
it looks like they are South Asian from their experience.
And they say, we worked at call centers, and I was like, really,
you worked at call centers and you went to Stanford interesting story maybe.
Anyways, and they say, look, we know it can be racist and all and
we're trying to less than that.
I was like maybe.
And then they gave this explanation which I thought was hilarious.
So let me break this one down for you.
Okay.
So one of the guys who started it,
Narayana told motherboard, I don't care about metrics.
I think about mental health, employee satisfaction, retention and
overall employee happiness, which by the way, I will now say are all metrics.
Okay, in fact [INAUDIBLE] all those metrics are checked out for me.
Okay, so wait, you do care about metrics.
You just listen a bunch of metrics and then said you like those metrics.
And earlier you had given stats about metrics like 31%,
41%, all those things were metrics.
Okay, then now Ariana continues, I strongly believe that once you keep your
employees happy, all the business metrics will get better.
So again, you do care about the metrics and the business metrics.
You just think they're gonna improve if you do this trick.
Okay, but let's keep going.
So that's a secondary result of what we're trying to achieve.
But the primary result for
me is actually improving the lives of all of these agents.
>> Right.
>> Okay, now, maybe, maybe, maybe that's your primary motivation,
although I would be dramatically surprised.
But it ain't the primary motivation of the folks who gave you 100 and $32 million.
The $132 million in investment wasn't like,
I hope that you make employees happier with our money.
No, it was with the expectation that they would make very solid profits.
So those business metrics are what they talk about 98% of the time
in their board meetings is my guess.
Maybe they're the one exception or maybe the second exception.
Okay, but not usually how it goes.