Spirent (News - Alert) Communications offers network test and measurement services for enterprises' and service providers' data centers, cloud and virtualized environments, and landline and wireless networks. It recently announced that Mobilethink (News - Alert), its mobile device intelligence business unit, will begin offering the Device Guides service to Digicel, a communications an entertainment provider, for customers in the Caribbean, Central America, and Asia Pacific.
Device Guides is a collection of instructional articles, complete with text and video, to which Digicel (News - Alert) can refer its customers when they have issues with specific products. It allows customers to take problem solving into their own hands, and when that is not enough, trained customer service agents who also have access to the Device Guides articles can use them to help customers who are live in voice, video, or Web chat. Geared toward mobile users, Mobilethink's collection contains information about more than 90,000 mobile devices that span more than 120 manufacturers.
Kerri-Ann Mitchell, the head of market programs at Digicel, commented on the partnership and her company's dedication to providing customers with the best support experience possible.
“With our commitment to delivering best value, best network and best service to customers across the globe, we are constantly implementing new ways to improve our customer satisfaction; the Mobilethink Device Guides will contribute to this,” Mitchell said.
The most predictive element of this partnership is the potential that the Device Guides information extends to customers who wish to solve their own problems. It gives them a large body of information that can lead them away from traditional customer service – even that made possible through multichannel platforms -- and onto the Web were everything is presented for them.
For some customers, this may appear as a step in the right direction. It is a central repository that gives customers the information they need for troubleshooting; it does so without forcing people into queues or phone trees and clears up customer service agents for more complex problems than those which customers can solve themselves. Likewise, for some businesses, this could look like a godsend because of the freedom it may offer customers and the time it can award agents who will not be burdened by simple issues.
TMC (News - Alert) points to this possibly being the year of customer self-service. Resources always available to customers without the need to wait in line can be a valuable addition to customer service as a whole. The big concern, however, companies will begin to rely on those self-service portals and skimp on training or supply of live customer service agents. Telling customers to first visit a website may work for some issues, but it will not work for all of them. If businesses begin to scale down their personnel in favor of digital repositories, they may see a drop in customer satisfaction even with the added material available online.
There will always be customers who favor speaking to live agents and there will always be issues outside the scope of the average person's ability to repair. This is where agents need to fill the gap in either desire or knowledge. Device Guides' ability to present information to agents as well as customers can keep agents informed so they can help solve customers' issues. For any companies eyeing that repository, though, it would be best to refrain for thinking that it alone will act as a panacea and a cheaper but still effective method of customer service.
Edited by Maurice Nagle