Customer Service by Remotely Operated Avatars Gaining Popularity; Practice Allows for Work by Part-Timers, Home-Bound People

By Shohei Yamaguchi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

7:00 JST, November 20, 2024

Customer service using remotely operated avatars is becoming more common in businesses such as convenience stores and online insurance consultations.

This new style of customer service has been attracting attention as a way to make up for Japan’s ever-worsening manpower shortage while paving the way for those with illnesses to work from home.

Even a bedridden person

“Do you want to use a coupon?” “Could you please return to the previous screen?”

At a Lawson convenience store in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, “Aoi-san,” a female avatar displayed on a monitor installed next to the self-checkout system, talked to an in-store shopper on the morning of Sept. 19.

Aoi-san’s voice was provided by 48-year-old woman who lives in Tokyo. She has been confined to bed in her home since around 2022, when she developed an intractable disease that caused muscle weakness throughout her body.

Previously, she worked at a hospital and a welfare office, helping disabled people find jobs, but after she became ill, she was unable to work anymore. Later, she learned that Lawson, Inc. was looking for an avatar operator. The job requirements stated that it was possible to work as little as once a week and could work from home, so she applied for the position.

Since May this year, she has been working from home, helping in-store shoppers for one to two hours a day, up to three days a week, depending on her physical condition.

She said she finds it rewarding to hear customers say, “Thank you,” or “I will come again.” She added, “I feel happy that I’m still able to contribute to society as much as possible through my work.”

In November 2022, Lawson introduced a customer service system using avatars, mainly for shoppers who have difficulty using self-checkout systems.

The convenience store chain now has about 60 people — including disabled persons, housewives and other part-timers — working from home as avatar operators for 18 stores in Tokyo and five other prefectures, including Osaka and Fukuoka. The company plans to increase the number of such operators to 1,000 in fiscal 2025.

Mitigating manpower shortage

According to a trend survey by Seed Planning Inc., a Tokyo-based market research firm, the number of companies in Japan using remotely-operated robots or avatars to provide customer service has increased from 11 in 2018 to 42 in 2023.

Of these, 21 companies, half of the total, have humans or artificial intelligence (AI) systems serve customers with remotely operated avatars.

The size of this market, which has been expanding year after year, is projected to reach \11.2 billion in 2024 and \12.7 billion in 2025.

Underlying the rapid expansion of this style of customer service — to convenience stores, mobile phone stores, hotels, and other businesses — is the worsening labor shortage in Japan, combined with the fact that non-face-to-face customer service became more normalized during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a survey on employment trends conducted by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, as of the end of June 2023, “accommodations, eating and drinking services” was the business sector facing the biggest labor shortage, at 336,000 workers, followed by “wholesale and retail trade” at 255,000.

Customer service using avatars has produced unexpected effects, as well.

Hokenichiba Co., an Osaka-based company that operates an insurance plan comparison website, in 2022 began using avatars to provide customer service during online consultations.

The company said it found that the rate of online consultations that successfully led to the conclusion of insurance contracts was more than 50% higher when avatars were used than when customers spoke with human consultants.

“Insurance often involves sensitive topics connected to personal circumstances. More than a few people probably feel more comfortable talking to an avatar [than to a human],” said Takanori Tasaka, an executive director of the company that manages Hokenichiba. “The general feeling used to be that salespeople had to show their faces to win the trust of customers. But avatars have gained more support than we expected.”

Currently, about 40% of the company’s online consultations are handled through avatars, Tasaka said.

Working together with humans

Yet, at present, avatars prove useful only if they “coexist” with humans.

For instance, at a convenience store, a human clerk is responsible for responding to detailed questions about products. The presence of a human clerk at the store is also believed to deter shoplifting.

There are expected to be more than a few people who will feel unfamiliar with or averse to interacting with avatars through a screen.

“If companies are able to put avatars to good use, they will be able to maintain high-quality customer service even in rural or sparsely-populated areas where securing manpower is difficult,” said Hirohiko Nakamura, a senior researcher at the Center of Advanced Technology at Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. “Working with avatars will allow humans to focus on work that can only be done in person.”