Marshall McLuhan, The Father of the Information Age, saw a difference between mechanization and automation in his ground-breaking book Understanding Media. According to McLuhan, the danger is mechanizing a task when it should really be automated. In other words, machines are applied to achieve a manual solution, and this is characteristic of many Internet applications today. The goal should be taking a task and thinking about it in an automated way that changes the way we envisioned it.
Technology rarely changes the basic customer service questions. Customers have been asking questions about their utilities bills for nearly a hundred years, and these questions are basic:
Why is it so high?
How much do I use?
There is a service problem.
I can't pay all of it now.
Only a change in the service will alter those questions. Utilities may start selling their gas in bulk to residential users. Everyone will switch to solar and the utility companies provide maintenance to the solar panels. Until these examples happen, utility customer service will be relative to previous decades.
Companies have a tendency to see technology as a customer service change and not as a service channel migration, and this clarification becomes more important with the wide spread acceptance of the Internet.
A recent survey by Call Center Enterprises, a leading Call Center consulting company, looked at how Forbes 500 companies used the Internet and revealed that 85 of the 500 had established a World Wide Web site. Obviously, the dominant area was computer hardware companies with 35, followed by computer software companies with 17, then telecommunications 7, banks 6, and then a mix of consumer product companies.
Of the 85 Internet applications only three--FedEx, AT&T, and General Electric--had any level of interactive quality, and the remainder used the Internet as a form of electronic advertising page or billboard.
None of the companies surveyed linked their Internet Home Page to a live agent for questions and only two companies thought their customers needed links into other external, products.
The most common applications, in terms of product or services, was FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), and this was followed by a complete listing of products with telephones and addresses on how to request information.
Nearly two thirds of the companies allowed the Internet user to send an e-mail for further information, but two actually allowed ordering the product while logged-in. Perhaps a look at the Banking industry was the most disturbing because of their already high-level of automation through Kiosk, PC Home Banking, and VRUs (Voice Reponse Units).
The Internet should be a natural for a bank. None of the banks surveyed allowed on-line credit card applications, on-line loan applications, balance management, comparison of CD rates and starting of new services. Data systems can't be an excuse because many of these activities can be done on a VRU and the remainder can be done with an off-line, firewalled server.
The facts are very plain. The first round Internet customer service applications missed the mark, and they demonstrate the second round needs to be developed with a very comprehensive customer service strategy.
An Internet Customer Service Applications should consider the following:
Targeted Applications
Many companies have implemented VRUs which are very interactive. The Internet offers greater ability to input and output data, and a company should carefully consider how the VRU and the Internet application will fit in their customer mix.
At the minimum, the Internet applications should have everything that is available in the VRU; this is important or customers will see migrating to the Internet application as a step backward. Initial studies show an active VRU user has many characteristics of an Internet user. The only difference is availability of technology: Does the customer have a PC with a modem?
When building Internet applications, there is one basic question to ask the staff that designed and built the VRU application: What would you have added if the VRU had more features?
For a banking environment, the list is endless. It could include: loan applications, late payment notification and scheduling, credit card applications and management, financial instrument sales and management, funds transfer. In short, it is everything that is available on PC Banking today with all additional bank internal processes added.
There is a type of person who wants to do business through digital methods and sees human interaction as slower. It is the same person that uses discount stock brokers because they don't see the value added, and research reveals their personality can be summed up in one phrase: give me the information on a screen and I'll make my own decisions.
Actually, there are only two limitations to Internet applications. First, there may be some transactions that are in the company's best interest to talk to the customer. This may be cross-selling opportunities, for catalog companies, but follow-up calls can serve the same purpose. It implies reordering the company's attitude from a reactive to a proactive mode.
Second, there may be a problem getting some data down to a firewalled Internet Server. Many times this is more emotional that factual, but the problem exists in some corporate minds.
Integrated Applications
Just as VRUs started as stand-alone technology and then became highly integrated, Internet applications have followed the same path; however, it needs to be recognized that there are two forms of integration and one of them is what makes the Internet a powerful platform.
The first, and simplest, is integration with other services. A customer should be able to go from an Internet application to a live agent with all the screens they accessed transferred to the live agent. Integration of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) with live and VRU applications has been common for three years, and there is no reason why this same standard can't be applied to the Internet.
This demonstrates a seamless view of customer service, and that has been a hard won approach. Companies should not go backwards in their technology.
Second and most powerful, the application should be integrated with other worldwide web sites. For a modem or network software vendor, there is always some issue with a related product that needs research. A customer should be able to pop from a help screen in the primary application to FAQ's at the modem vendor or operating system vendor.
This principal demonstrates that very few activities are stand-alone today. Ordering flowers requires knowing zip codes and addresses. Starting new utility services may require knowing when the other installers are coming so that a minimum of time is wasted. Promising a loan payment may require knowing a banking balance.
Through Hot Links, an Internet application can go from site to site gathering information until all the required data is on hand. This makes the decision process faster and it is all done without the need for human intervention.
Resource Reallocation
Between VRUs, Internet applications, and other forms of electronic business, a constant examination of customer services resources is mandatory. Service volume is driven into least cost channels that also match customer needs. The statement doesn't propose forcing customers into a service channel they don't like or want. It recognizes that customers can be sold on the benefits of one channel over another, and this allows the company to adjust costs at the same time meet customer expectations.
This reallocation will drive an additional round of consolidation in the call center industry. With the potential for some 70 to 80 percent of applications to be provided through the Internet or VRU, companies should rethink their entire disaster recovery plan and the need for multiple centers.
However, this doesn't necessarily means a reduction of jobs. The work force is in a transition from a reactive to proactive mode. The freed resources allow regular outbound customer care calls that transmit the "the company cares " message, building a greater opportunity for additional services.
The call center has experienced round after round of technological advance. The ACD, VRU, CTI, and customer application software have continually improved and built a sophisticated customer service model that the Internet will provide the much waited final automation link. Companies need to be ready to accept this final change and start focusing on the real task. Customer service should be turned over to the customer with service authority and sets the stage for freed resources.
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