My observation: The article doesn't say that it is automated, just that they're drones (meaning: always behaving the same way). I assume they hired a few people

My observation: The article doesn't say that it is automated, just that they're drones (meaning: always behaving the same way). I assume they hired a few people to do this (optionally through some other company). It seems like they got a few standard responses and they need to stick to that. Might be e.g. in Manilla or somewhere in India. Reasoning is that they really stay to the script. The responses are so similar, normally you'd try to tweak it more so it is more natural. I noticed for outsourced stuff they tend to stick more to the script no matter if it makes sense or not. It's up to the manager to notice that the something needs to be tweaked.