- Given the many technologies
that can potentially support customer service
and the multitude of decisions to be made
around suppliers and solutions,
some customer service leaders throw up their hands and say,
hey, our IT department takes the lead on that for us.
That's a mistake.
Here I'll summarize some of the key technology developments
that are empowering customer service.
We'll identify areas of innovation
that are having the biggest impact.
And we'll discuss why it's important
that you have direct involvement
in your organization's technology direction.
So what are some of the key trends today?
Developments around how information travels,
and the shared protocols and standards
that enable that to happen
have really opened up a world of opportunity.
For example,
your service operation can be easily distributed.
You can have multiple sites and even home-based employees.
And hosted and cloud-based alternatives
mean you don't have to own
or manage the technologies required.
You can partner with others to do that,
and scale capacity is needed.
That gives you access to the latest system capabilities.
Today's technologies enable you
to get any kind of interaction, a phone call, chat,
text, social post, or really any other
to the right place at the right time.
You can program in all sorts of routing criteria,
such as information you have on the customer,
and employees who may be best suited
for specific interactions.
The customer's telephone number or account number
can pull up and deliver files and relevant information
before your employee even says hello.
This applies to any customer-facing environment,
from a small pizza restaurant
that immediately knows what a caller ordered last time,
to the large tech-support operation,
where reps can view and manage troubleshooting tickets
without delay.
Workforce optimization refers to the tools
used for forecasting staffing scheduling and reporting.
In recent years, these capabilities have become far better
at helping us pull together
and incorporate customer-facing and back-office work.
Popular tools include reports that highlight discrepancies
between actual and planned schedules,
and administration software that automates shift changes,
vacation approvals, and other tasks.
Many of these systems now integrate directly
with payroll and financial systems.
Quality monitoring systems record interactions,
and enable review for quality improvement purposes.
Today, both voice and screen activities can be captured,
and coaches can insert voice annotations
into original recordings for training purposes.
You can include recordings in reports
that go to other departments,
information that might be helpful to them,
or to senior-level managers.
And speech analytics capabilities can quickly mine
any number of interactions,
from just a few to many thousands,
for critical issues and trends.
There are many capabilities that can help you
establish stronger relationships with customers.
Today's tools enable you to see consolidated views
of all the contacts they've had with your organization.
Fulfillment and tracking capabilities
can integrate functions such as shipping,
and provide proactive notifications to customers.
Short customer surveys, delivered in the channels they use,
can provide immediate insight,
and be correlated with other majors,
such as internal quality monitoring.
The computer desktop's a major area of innovation,
with the way the system's providing
a single intuitive interface
to what can sometimes be a smattering of legacy systems
behind the scenes.
Capabilities include accessing and sending documents,
internal collaboration tools, and others.
There are also important developments happening almost daily
in knowledge management, data analytics,
and self-service capabilities.
Artificial intelligence is making huge inroads
into customer service,
both in providing self-service capabilities
and as intelligent assistance to service representatives.
All these things considered though,
the single most important area of innovation,
the one that rises above all others,
is what's happening on the customer's end,
the incredible growth in smartphones,
and social and mobile capabilities.
Our customers are making these investments,
and just as importantly, they're taking the time to learn
and use them.
We often think about just what's happening on our end,
the organization's end of this equation,
but the technologies our customers are using
are becoming an essential part
of what we can call our customer service ecosystem.
The capabilities available to you are limited
really only by your imagination,
and the realities of your IT roadmap and budget.
And with cloud-based services that are provided
on a per-month basis or per-user basis,
even the smallest companies have access to
and can afford the most advanced capabilities.
My recommendation is this.
Get involved.
Observe how customers are using service.
Take note of their perceptions.
Ask your employees what's working well,
where are their frustrations and gaps.
And include them on your development team.
They're closest to the work.
They know it best, and they'll provide insight
into capabilities that would be very valuable.
This is an exciting and important time of development.
You don't have to be a technology expert
to be an effective customer service leader.
In fact, I've observed some of the best leaders
are decidedly not technology experts,
but they aren't afraid to ask the basic questions.
How can we make things better, easier for our customers?
How can we make things better for our employees?