When I first started my career in service now 25 years ago, I worked in a call center. Things might\u2019ve been simpler (and more basic) than they are now, but there was still that pressure to create efficient solutions that work\u2014cheaply and at scale\u2014and often at the expense of the customer. At the call center, this translated to \u201csticking to the script,\u201d doing anything and everything to decrease average call duration, and incorporating technology to scale up our customer service program in ways that often treated our customers like numbers. I know first hand how that led to a frustrating experience for all parties involved\u2014me, my fellow colleagues, and the people we were trying to serve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Technology has always promised to make things better. In the realm of customer service, that meant simpler, faster, and more convenient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that promise has been broken, time and time again\u2014from \u201cthe script\u201d to online forms on a company\u2019s \u201ccontact us\u201d page. Like an inflexible, impersonal script, an online web form doesn\u2019t often lead to a satisfying resolution. Your message can disappear into a black hole, you receive no notification on when to expect a response, and by the time the response does come through (if it ever does) you have moved on or found another way to get your question answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While businesses intend to deploy technology to uplevel customer service, they often prioritize efficiency and cost-saving above all else. As a result, the human element their business was built on in the first place gets lost. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n