The unintended consequence of so much high-quality customer service automation is that by the time your customers get to a real person, they are already enraged and their problems are mercilessly comp
When you write: "The better your automated service options, the more customers will solve their simple problems for themselves." What I noticed is, that the more the processes are automated, your customers get maybe better quality of work on one side, the thing is that your team loses their edge, expertise, and, with it, uniqueness.
It becomes an act of balance to create a great working environment for your teams, where their expertise can blossom, while the customers get automated what makes sense and where they can still benefit from the provider's expertise.
Oh, I feel this So. Much. I'm generally self-sufficient and can figure out a lot of systems. If I am reaching out to a customer service representative via chat or phone or in person, it's because it's a problem that can't be solved on the website or in other ways already. Unfortunately, this has included problems like what to do when the business account contact has left the organization or when the account holder has died. Being on hold for more than 30 minutes (with that "helpful" repeated message that tells me I can go to the website or download an app when actually no, I cannot) is bad customer service, and while I'm not a business school prof, I *do* have friends and a Twitter account where I will put companies on blast as needed!
This is so good and I hope that a lot of up and coming corporates would read this and create better experiences to their customers.
Rita, you are so right!
When you write: "The better your automated service options, the more customers will solve their simple problems for themselves." What I noticed is, that the more the processes are automated, your customers get maybe better quality of work on one side, the thing is that your team loses their edge, expertise, and, with it, uniqueness.
It becomes an act of balance to create a great working environment for your teams, where their expertise can blossom, while the customers get automated what makes sense and where they can still benefit from the provider's expertise.
Oh, I feel this So. Much. I'm generally self-sufficient and can figure out a lot of systems. If I am reaching out to a customer service representative via chat or phone or in person, it's because it's a problem that can't be solved on the website or in other ways already. Unfortunately, this has included problems like what to do when the business account contact has left the organization or when the account holder has died. Being on hold for more than 30 minutes (with that "helpful" repeated message that tells me I can go to the website or download an app when actually no, I cannot) is bad customer service, and while I'm not a business school prof, I *do* have friends and a Twitter account where I will put companies on blast as needed!