I have just come back from Japan – which may warrant a blog all its own, but at this point, I shall rant about the ubiquitous bot instead.
Customer, customer, customer: I don’t need to spout research supporting the myriad business benefits of putting the customer first as it is such an ingrained mantra. How can we serve our customers better, how can we attract them to us and keep them? Technology should be one obvious way to achieve this goal, yet somehow, we have managed to move the dial backwards by believing we can leave it to the bots.
As a long-standing and loyal customer to my network provider, I shall not name it here, but my experience this week was infuriating and unlikely to be unique. So, back to the Japan reference: when travelling in that marvellous country, calls and data downloads can be prohibitively expensive, and so I took the ‘smart’ step of installing a Japanese eSim for the duration. All AOK so far. I disabled it on return and came back to work only to find my business line no longer functioned, despite all aspects of the phone telling me it was.
Fast-forward to a chatbot and the inane circular process of trying to get it to understand my problem; (to be read in Dalek voice) – “We have sent you a text to that number with a security code so we can continue”. My phone number isn’t working, may I speak to a human? “We have sent you a text to that number with a security code so we can continue.” My phone number isn’t working, may I speak to a human? etc, etc. After three rounds of this, I was told I had failed security and could not access any further ‘help’ for the next 30 minutes?!
Websites now almost unanimously avoid pointing you to a human who could help you, burying the ‘contact us’ option deep within their folds. Everywhere you look, there is a piece of technology between the customer and the service provider, designed to smooth the interaction, but somehow doing the opposite. On a recent trip to the doctor’s surgery, I witnessed an elderly and baffled patient being directed to an iPad to book herself in, clearly adding to her distress.
The Institute of Customer Service, in the States, suggests that self-service solutions seem to work for simple transactions and leave customers largely satisfied. However, there is a real desire for human interaction when dealing with complex problems, which are either complicated in the first place or made worse by a bot. How many of you also launch early into “May I speak to a human?” when dealing with a chatbot? Copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and paste.
Step back to the early days of call centres, when you could speak to a knowledgeable human and resolve your issue swiftly. Unfortunately, the deterioration in service standards from call centres, coupled with increasing levels of rudeness and abuse from our current society, has left call centre operators with rising attrition rates and problems finding quality staff (National Customer Rage Survey 2023). It has become a vicious circle, resulting in customer satisfaction steadily and steeply declining over the past decade or so.
Fast-forward to the idea that technology is the panacea. Using an algorithm to convince your customers they really need to buy that chainsaw to go with their hairdryer purchase just goes to show how far we’ve moved from the reality of customer service being about people.
A recent study by Keele University supports the idea of a place for technology in customer service, but, for now, just as a frontline offer, leaving complex problems to remain with a human. Their reasoning, which makes sense to me, is that AI is not yet equipped with the human nuances certain intricate problems demand and is especially unwelcome where the problem has a technological origin: think automated checkouts or, in my case, a non-functioning phone line.
There is also research to support the concept of generative AI acting in tandem with humans rather than as a substitute (Brynjolfsson, 2023). Where call centre agents were assisted by an AI assistant offering real-time response suggestions, yet remained in control of the conversation with the customer, not only did the number of issues resolved per hour rise by circa 14%, but the agents were learning more effective techniques and becoming more consistent across the team. In turn, harking back to the issue of our rude society, the study measured a significant improvement in the treatment of the agents, reducing the attrition rate. Not quite so vicious a circle after all.
If you can actually find one of those secret ‘contact us’ telephone numbers and can write that novel whilst on hold listening to supermarket music, then a human does still exist somewhere in that vast corporate entity and, who knows, you might just get some actual customer service.