I chose this particular topic, as it is very common and actual nowadays. With regard to my current study program, it has lots to add, as exceptional customer service goes hand in hand with maintaining a good name for company and/or brand.
With COVID taking it to customer service workers to work from home, many companies have opted for robot customer service to take the load off the work.
However, probably many of us have experienced the robot customer service chats and, sometimes even really annoying, typing with them, when at the end of chat, they still cannot solve your problem and you are left with lost time and frustration.
Five9 does promise more human experience in customer service, so that´s where I dig in to find out, what it is all about.
According to the information on their web page:
“Five9 is a multi-tenant cloud contact center service or contact center as a service (CCaaS). Five9 can help you manage all your omnichannel customer interactions including voice, SMS, chat, email, social, video, and more. The entire product offering is delivered over the web including the voice connection between the customer and the agent, as well as all the interfaces for controlling your call center for admins, supervisors, and agents.”
My chosen text describes exactly how it could be achieved, taking in account the perspective both from company´s sight as well as from customer´s.
What do customers await from service?
- Fast and proper solution to their problem – completely agree. The main reason I am getting in touch with customer service is to find an urgent and fast but at the same time working solution to my problem
- To get to talk to actual person, not to robot or answering machine – I totally hate talking and chatting to robots or answering machines as I still end up on calling the actual customer service to get help I need. That leaves me drained and frustrated if I need to chat to robot and then still in need to call the customer service
- Getting quick response – even though I completely understand the workload the company may have, I would rather feel offended if my matter or issue would need to wait for couple of days to be looked into. I cannot describe myself as very patient person and I think that there are many people who would feel the same way
- not being put from one person to another with disruption or uncertainty – haven´t that happened already many times before? Oh yes, the phrase what we dread – you will be connected to other customer service operator and then you need to retell your story for 100th of time…..
According to the topic text, many customers do like to use the phone as primary channel.
Here, in my opinion, the phone as primary channel, is not always true, specially to those, who usually have work and cannot sit on phone for more than 10 minutes and wait for solution. There are many who would prefer to be contacted through e-mail or message.
However, phone as channel, has wide understanding, as nowadays there are e-mails, chats and other apps in phone. So, in this particular case, I could understand if phone would be primary choice of channel.
Five9 thinks, that there are two foundational components how to drive more human experience:
- Responsiveness – meaning has it, that company musts be able to respond to customer´s changing needs
- Empathy – the ability to discern and understand other people’s emotions and feel their perspective
Do I agree? Well, I do, as it is what I would expect from customer service – the understanding my needs, calming me down and reassuring that my matter will be solved as fast as possible. Not to forget empathy – that´s what won´t usually come in mind as first, but plays a significant role in providing an exceptional and more human experience. Should Finland hire more emphatical people in customer service? Good idea!
That´s what Five9 says on how to Deliver a More Human Experience:
- Know Me – customers want to be remembered and treated as old acquaintances, it means, they won´t like to introduce themselves over and over again
- Meet Me – customers expect that company has many channels on how they could get in touch with them
- Empower Me – company should have some troubleshooting tool where customers could search and try to find a solution themselves
- Remember Me – we hate to repeat ourselves many times, don´t we? Well, many customers think the same…
- Respect Me – long waiting on the line and background music makes at least me upset and longing to hang up if I won´t be connected on time. Many customers want the same – they want as fast as possible answer from customer service without being put on hold for a long time
- Support Me – customers do expect that customer service is prepared for their issue and will that it will be dealt with immediately
- Assure Me – customers want secure and reliable service
Conclusion:
Five9 sounds and looks like a good investment for companies to achieve the more human experience in customer service. However, the companies must always be prepared for customer´s changing minds and new issues what may arise along the way.
I myself prefer human customer service and can appreciate it, when I get one. Numerous companies do lose their customers due to poor customer service as customers also rate them on social media and webpage. Poor reviews and comments put potential customers away from contacting or dealing with company.
In my opinion, customer service is the most important part of company´s glory and good name.
References:
Five9, How the five9® intelligent cloud contact center works, Five9 Contact Center as a Service – the Best Cloud Contact Center for Your Business, https://www.five9.com/products/capabilities/how-it-works
Five9, The Five9 Guide to Making Customer Service a More Human Experience, https://lucit-my.sharepoint.com/personal/outi_kahkonen_lapinamk_fi/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fouti%5Fkahkonen%5Flapinamk%5Ffi%2FDocuments%2FCEMIT%2DMECIT%2FMaterials%2FReaction%20paper%20%2B%20LC%2F2021%5FMaking%20Customer%20Service%20a%20More%20Human%20Experience%2Epdf&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fouti%5Fkahkonen%5Flapinamk%5Ffi%2FDocuments%2FCEMIT%2DMECIT%2FMaterials%2FReaction%20paper%20%2B%20LC