Jul 26, 2024 19:00:00

Aeon introduces AI to its employee customer service training, enabling real-time analysis of employee smiles, voice volume, pronunciation, etc.

by

hans-johnson

Supermarket chain Aeon Retail reports that from July 1, 2024, it will be introducing the AI device 'Smile-kun' to employee customer service training at approximately 240 Aeon and Aeon Style stores nationwide, with the aim of improving smiles and greetings.

World's first! Introducing edge AI to employee smile and speech training - Employee smile and greeting rates increased 1.6 times
(PDF file) https://www.aeonretail.jp/pdf/240701R_1.pdf

Japan supermarket chain uses AI to gauge staff smiles, speech tones in quality service push | South China Morning Post

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/article/3271333/japan-supermarket-chain-uses-ai-gauge-staff-smiles-speech-tones-quality-service-push

Aeon Retail's 'Smile-kun' is provided by software company InstaVR , and uses AI to analyze and score over 450 characteristics of employees, such as their smile, voice volume, pronunciation, and tone, in real time, and can provide instant feedback. According to InstaVR, it allows employees to improve their smiles and voices while having fun playing a game.

Aeon Retail said, 'As we have been educating our employees to improve our customer service, we have found that different people have different standards for smiling and speaking when interacting with customers, and as a result, they may not be able to fully meet the target standards, such as not raising the corners of their mouths enough, not speaking loud enough, or not speaking clearly enough.' They added, 'We have adopted InstaVR's 'Smile-kun' to provide customers with a better shopping environment through pleasant smiles and greetings.'

As part of the experiment, Aeon Retail will install Smile-kun in eight stores nationwide from July 2023. A three-month demonstration experiment was conducted on a total of about 3,400 employees, and it was found that the rate of employees smiling and greeting customers increased by about 1.6 times compared to before the introduction. In response to this, Aeon Retail reported, 'We will expand the stores that introduce Smile-kun to 240 stores in the Hokuriku-Shinetsu, Kanto, Tokai, Kinki, and Chugoku-Shikoku areas, mainly in stores where new employees are assigned, and by standardizing smiles and voice standards across the entire company, we will further improve customer service and the quality of our service.'

However, some media have expressed negative opinions about the introduction of 'Smile-kun,' and

a survey conducted by the National Federation of Textile, Chemical, Food, Distribution and General Service Workers' Unions (UA Zensen) showed that 'forcing service industry workers to smile in accordance with 'standards' is another form of customer harassment,' 'Smiles should be beautiful and touching, not treated like a commodity,' and 'Using an opportunity to standardize people's behavior is cruel and ridiculous.'

The foreign media outlet South China Morning Post also criticized the system, saying, 'It will likely increase harassment in the workplace, especially customer harassment.'

On the message board site Hacker News, there were also critical voices saying, 'It's disgusting to think that we're being forced to smile and then having an AI judge whether our smiles are good or bad,' as well as 'It's not surprising considering Japan is a deeply conformist society. It seems that Japanese people don't value individuality very much.'