Getting technology to work for you
By F Kamaruddin
Is your organization using I.T. in the right way to create great telephone experiences?
I was going through various items that I’ve earmarked for reading when I saw When you call anyone you want to talk to the person, not a machine. In it, B.K. Sidhu reflected on the negative impact of automated transactions and limited human resources on a customer’s experience. Unfortunately, many have experienced what the writer described in the article. Being in a long queue with the undesirable prospect of waiting a long time more, repeatedly dialing a number before being able to speak to a human being – these are not happy instances. You’ve probably experienced these yourself, haven’t you?
Many companies use technology with the intention of increasing their productivity. The most obvious methods involve automation of call distribution and computerization that minimizes the tasks performed by employees. Regardless of organization size, technology’s best role is as the enabler of the company’s processes. If a company has a poorly designed and understaffed call center, the experience with technology will be very bad.
So how can service providers troubleshoot, if not overcome, the dissatisfaction that customers face? Companies need to focus on these 2 fundamental areas:
1. The experience design: The steps callers go through to get their issues resolved over the phone.
2. The human resource planning: What kind of transactions do callers need live agents to resolve?
Both of these impact the design of the customer experience over the telephone. Strategic human resource planning is the best way to attract and retain the right people because the organization will have a clearer picture of the qualities of the agent that they want to hire and what kind of training will be needed to develop them.
The bottom line is this: When people call your organization, they need to feel that you’ve solved their problem. Relying on technology alone without a clear picture of how it supports your resource allocation is a sure way to create bottlenecks that hinder your customers from being happy with you. Think of technology as an enabler for your people to meet your customers, and you will be on your way to deliver the right brand experience to your customers and your employees too!
