Provide notifications to customers or patrons
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
Software drafts well and sends at volume, and vertical support agents now resolve a large share of inbound questions end to end. What does not transfer is the relationship, and the judgment about when a message should not be sent at all.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Routine communication and explanation |
| Jobs that do it | 12 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Communicating with People Outside the Organization (4.A.4.a.3) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 12 occupations that perform it.
- Page individuals wanted at the box office.
- Page guests in hotel lobbies, dining rooms, or other areas.
- Locate and notify customers of delinquent accounts by mail, telephone, or personal visits to solicit payment.
- Contact customers to respond to inquiries or to notify them of claim investigation results or any planned adjustments.
- Contact customers by mail, telephone, or in person concerning acceptance or rejection of applications.
- Inform customers by mail or telephone of order information, such as unit prices, shipping dates, and any anticipated delays.
- Enroll individuals to participate in programs and notify them of their acceptance.
- Announce arrival and departure information, using public address systems.
- Notify consignees, passengers, or customers of freight or baggage arrival and arrange for delivery.
- Use telephone to deliver verbal messages.
- Leave notices telling patrons where to collect mail that could not be delivered.
- Correspond with insured or agent to obtain information or to inform them of account status or changes.
- Contact customers or travel agents to advise them of travel conveyance changes or to confirm reservations.
- Provide customers with change of address cards and other forms.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for routine communication and explanation, and what it costs.
Drafting replies costs nothing beyond the assistant you already pay for. Only move to a support agent billed per resolution once the inbound volume is large enough that the per-resolution price beats the hour it takes you.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
12 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Baggage Porters and Bellhops
- Bill and Account Collectors
- Cargo and Freight Agents
- Couriers and Messengers
- Customer Service Representatives
- Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks
- Loan Interviewers and Clerks
- Order Clerks
- Postal Service Mail Carriers
- Receptionists and Information Clerks
- Reservation and Transportation Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks
- Ushers, Lobby Attendants, and Ticket Takers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Provide information to guests, clients, or customers”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.