Home Technology Rumored Verizon decision will let down both customers and employees

Rumored Verizon decision will let down both customers and employees

by wellnessfitpro

Verizon may start cutting jobs and shuttering stores as soon as this month, per employees who caught a whiff of the change.

Reducing physical footprint

Sources claiming to be Verizon employees have heard chatter that the company plans to announce mass layoffs on November 20. While the company reportedly hasn’t specifically said which units will be downsized, concurrent talk of store closures suggests that store staff jobs will be on the chopping block. Per one employee, even some corporate employees will be let go.

This appears to be driven by Verizon‘s plan to outsource certain roles to AI, rendering many employees redundant.

We saw it coming

In June, Verizon announced Project 624, an AI-fueled overhaul of its customer care. It was the company’s big bet on AI to improve how its customers were served.

At that time, the company said that human agents were a part of its push to offer better personalized customer service. It also took pride in having the largest retail postpaid fleet and revealed that 93 percent of the population lived within 30 minutes of a Verizon store.

Of course, companies never reveal in advance that they might need fewer workers in the future. And with customer care duties getting offloaded to AI, it may think that it has no reason to keep as many employees as it does now.

Verizon’s next mistake?

Schulman has committed to making transformative changes to keep customers happy. However, replacing human agents with AI might backfire. After all, many Verizon customers have already made it clear that they don’t appreciate being served by AI instead of a human representative. AI tools may have come a long way, but some questions require human cognition.

On the flip side, some customers may be relieved at not having to deal with sales representatives, as they can sometimes be pushy to meet their sales targets. 

T-Mobile has been discouraging in-store visits for quite some time now. With Verizon seemingly heading down the same path, the telecom industry is facing a fundamental, AI-driven shift in how customers are served.

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