Customers Declare Independence from Rotten Customer Service

In the same spirit of Independence Day, American customers are demanding freedom: from lousy customer service, that is. Until about a decade ago, customers generally had to put up with whatever type of customer service a company chose to offer, no matter how bad. Today, it’s a different story. In a flat economy, customers are closer with their money than ever, and they have more choices than ever. With many products and services commoditized, it’s often the quality of customer care that determines whether a customer will remain loyal or bolt to a competitor that is only too happy to welcome them.

Customers today have more options than ever before. They have a dizzying array of communications media to choose from: from telephone to e-mail to Web to user forums and comment boards to mobile apps to social media networks, such as Twitter and Facebook (News - Alert). Even in-store experiences have gone digital, with customers using in-store kiosks and mobile apps to navigate brick-and-mortar stores.

What all this means to the call center is this: shape up or give up. Customers expect their service experience to be continuous regardless of whether they choose to start on the phone, hang up and initiate a chat, or a launch a mobile app on their phone. They expect that whatever door they choose to use, they will arrive at the same destination: excellent customer service.

To continue with the independence theme, a successful call center today is “by the people, for the people.” Customer service offered one way, by royal decree, simply won’t cut it.

From a technology standpoint, this means the contact center needs to be as integrated as possible. Silos of data will lead to customers having to repeat themselves and explain their issues over and over again. They will lead to platinum customers being treated like first time customers. And they will definitely lead to customers taking to social media to broadcast their negative experiences far and wide: hardly a scenario that inspires fireworks.

Aside from technology, companies today also need to ensure that their workforces are ready to deliver the integrated customer experience that is expected. Workforces must be well-trained, flexible and (possibly most important) available when customers need them. This has raised the stakes for workforce management solutions that ensure that all incoming customer channels are fully staffed by workers properly trained to handle them with panache. Workforce optimization, a contact that goes beyond workforce management, helps companies improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their customer interactions through solutions that capture interactions across all channels, analyze them to reveal insights, and drive actions that can directly improve operations, customer delight and the bottom line.

From a customer perspective, that’s something to celebrate.