Opinion: apps and chatbots may provide adequate customer service on routine queries, but that's not the case with complex problems
By Maeve Toohey and Sarah Kieran, University of Limerick
Please hold while we try to connect your call. All our operators are busy right now. Your call is important to us. Your current estimated wait time is 28 mins.
These words are very familiar to many of us trying to reach customer services at some well-known companies today. Jan Carlzon investigated these customer touch points in his seminal book Moments of Truth. He argued that a customer with a problem well solved was actually more loyal to the brand than if they had not had the problem in the first place. If service is so important, why then do so many seem to fall short?
Customer service is one of the business spaces that has been fundamentally transformed by digital advances in the last 20 years. From the high street boutique by way of Amazon to the local bank manager by way of Revolut, how we experience customer service now is very different to how it once was. Yet the value of a problem effectively and efficiently solved with a friendly manner is universal and timeless. So why then, does it feel unexpected when we get really good service? Why does it feel like the exception rather than the rule?
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Let’s look firstly at the impact of digital transformation on customer service. Advancements in the development of artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and the Internet of things have revolutionised the way organisations and customers do business.
Our service problems are resolved without us even knowing as software has already upgraded our account or smart phone overnight. If we do encounter an issue, say with our personal banking, we simply log onto our app and resolve the issue ourselves with minimal intervention from any service agents at the company. We will achieve this through data-driven frequently asked questions or by interacting with an AI-driven chatbot, often not even realising it is a robotic service agent on the other side of our ‘Help’ button.
Such automation of customer service about common, straightforward service problems can be achieved because if it is routine and known, it can be standardised - and if it can be standardised, it can be digitised. Consequently, the cubicles of call centre agents on headsets answering the same question 80 times a day is consigned to history.
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So why, then, if we have to ring in, is there no one there to answer the phone? Interestingly, evidence shows that customers prefer to resolve issues themselves. A recent study of millennials and Gen Z found that 82% prefer to self-diagnose and self-fix software related issues with the help of a virtual assistant. There is increasimg evidence that customers of all ages are happy to serve themselves on the condition that the process is easy, straightforward and, most importantly, actually works.
But the service-gap we are seeing today across many companies and sectors stems from what is not digitised, namely the problems that are not standard and routine. While technology may be solving many service problems, it is also creating new ones. The more digital our consumer products become, the more we use smart devices, integrated entertainment systems and shop online, the more complex the problems we encounter. The faster machines solve the simple problems, the faster we raise the service bar for the complex ones. These ‘moments of truth’ become hyper-contextualised simply because we are really, really stuck if we cannot resolve the issues ourselves these days.
When we pick up the phone, we are greeted by an interactive voice response with its menu of ‘press 1 for X, 2 for Y'. If we manage to battle our way through that maze, frequently guarded by a voice-activated chatbot, we might finally get into the queue to talk to a real, live human. This then is the moment of truth" will that human be able to solve our multi-factorial, complex problem that has defeated both the chatbot and app? Unfortunately, in many cases they cannot.
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When we investigate why, we find that many companies are struggling with their customer service business for a few critical reasons. The complexity of service roles today are just not recognised so the level of skill and business acumen needed for the role is underestimated. As a result, companies don’t offer appropriate pay or career development and this leads to significant talent acquisition and retention issues as they spiral into a revolving-door scenario with service staff.
Research by the Kemmy Business School Work Futures Lab has shown that, where service roles are acknowledged as professional spaces, a minimum of five years’ experience is required to handle the customer problems that ‘rise to the top’ of their digital service systems. As a result, appropriate skill and career paths for these professionals are vital. Interestingly, the technical skills are the easiest to upskill; it's the cognitive (thinking) and relational (people) skills are the ones that make the difference, the innately human piece of the service proposition.
This under-estimation of service people is not confined to phone-based service. We experience it in banks, shops and restaurants every day. While we hear and read much commentary about how businesses are having a hard time finding and keeping the right people - and of course we have to acknowledge all the other rising costs - it is perhaps time to ask different questions regarding why this is the case. Is it because, perhaps, the role these people play is under-valued and under-paid? What really differentiates one business from another – human or machine?
Maeve Toohey is a Research Assistant at the Kemmy Business School Work Futures Lab at the University of Limerick. Dr. Sarah Kieran is Assistant Dean, for the Kemmy Business School Academy and a Lecturer in Work & Employment at the University of Limerick.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
