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Hi, I'm Ian Jacobs,

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a principal analyst here at Forrester.

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And I'm actually here to
talk about the holiday rush

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that retailers go through every year.

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Every year, retailers have to hire up

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a large number of
customer service personnel

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to handle both the
pre-rush of selling stuff,

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and then the post-boom of returning stuff.

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At the same time, retailers
are investing in chat bots.

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In a recent Forrester survey,

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50% of retailers said that they
were investing in chat bots.

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And 93% of those were investing
in it for customer service.

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So what I actually want to talk about

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is the impact of that on your hiring.

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If in fact you are investing in chat bots,

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you're changing the nature of work

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that you are asking those

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seasonal contact center agents to do.

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The work changes because the simple things

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that they used to do is now gone.

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What is left are more complex issues,

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or issues with customers who
are so upset, or so frustrated,

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that you probably don't
want automation facing them.

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So as you're thinking
about your seasonal hiring,

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you now will need to take into account

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this new kind of work that
you're asking people to do,

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and say, "hmm, maybe I actually
need to start changing

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my hiring profile,
maybe I need to actually

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be recruiting not just
anyone off the street,

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but people who actually have a passion

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for the products or services that I sell."

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People who can emotionally
connect with your customers.

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It is a big change.

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You're no longer going to
be able to just hire people

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and pay them $11 an hour and
assume that they know nothing,

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but you're going to
train them very quickly.

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That model won't work anymore.

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And that's all caused by your
investments in chat bots.

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So understand the impact of
your technology investment

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downstream on the kind of
seasonal customer support

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you are going to be able
to give to customers.

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So if you want anymore information about

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the kinds of changes to
hiring that you need to do,

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check out a recent report that I published

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with my colleague, Kate
Leggett, it's called

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The Future of Work, You Must Change

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How You Hire Customer Service Agents.

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And there'll be a link
below, thanks so much.