HiGame

The next time you reach out to Microsoft’s Xbox support, you might not be talking to a Microsoft employee — or an employee of any kind. According to a new report, Microsoft has replaced most of its paid social support staff with unpaid “Xbox Ambassadors.” In some cases, the support reps who were let go spent their final weeks of employment training the new unpaid volunteers.

The Xbox Ambassador program existed prior to this move, but they weren’t taking on the role of front-line customer support reps. The Ambassadors were active on the Xbox forums, essentially acting as moderators who answered questions and kept order. These are entirely volunteer roles in the Xbox community, but Microsoft opted to replace a dozen paid staff who ran the popular @Xboxsupport Twitter account with ambassadors. When you use the Xbox support site, you get an AI chatbot that will eventually pass you off to the Twitter account or forums.

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