A viral post from social media made a startling revelation about mass layoffs at a customer service provider, Rogers Communications Inc. The Canada-based firm laid off over a thousand employees, according to the user. They shared that “in reality, they needed us (employees) to train the AI…we were exploited and taken advantage of…”
The user of Reddit addressed the post to “everyone laid off” under the subreddit thread r/Rogers. Claiming worsening conditions for customers as well, the redditor said that the AI agents who replaced the laid-off employees at Rogers were “incompetent AI agents that send you around in loops, and less/no human interaction.”
AI was “strategically plotting our demise”
The user “Cool_Alfalfa” gave a breakdown how the Canadian firm used the employees’ expertise to train the AI tool to replace them.
“Starting last year we were forced to use this AI summary tool to make “our jobs easier” but the reality all along was they needed us to train the AI and were strategically plotting our demise of replacing us.”
Additionally, they shared that employees often applied for just one position in the firm. But they were trained for multiple departments beyond their area of expertise or voluntary agreement.
Expecting to deal with the increased workload with the same productivity with no increase in pay became a constant factor for worry for the Rogers employees. “We get treated like a number and are expected to work non-stop,” revealed the post.
A practice of “After Call Work Time” allowed the employees a 30-second break in between customer calls to complete notes or personal time. However, the post unraveled that not only was this time reduced to 12 seconds, but the employees were expected to select this option manually before each call in order to take a 12-second breather.
Unpaid commissions but no proof
As a norm, customer service firms do not allow phones during working hours to protect the personal data of the customers. These privacy guidelines, while essential, have left employees without proof of pending sales commissions as per the author of the rant post following mass layoffs at Rogers. As per the post, the “management specifically told us (the employees) to stay quiet and not to go to the media about this.”
Netizens react
A similar sentiment resonated in the comment section where another user shared that, “to get severance, I had to sign an NDA”. Despite of awareness of legal advice, accessibility remains limited to the financially elite.
From the customer’s point of view, a user came up and revealed that they spent “11 hours on hold over the course of a week to finally talk to a human being so I could cancel my account. The agent was nice as pie and really helpful but getting through was pure torture. The hold music is enough to get you sectioned, never mind the constant voice over telling you to us the AI bot instead.”
Telus, another customer service agency, as per a user under the post, shared uses the same AI-bot. It “takes you through endless loops and directs you to the wrong person, only for them to put you back into the queue and start all over again.”