Customer Experience

The Pink Datacenter – 1.3 – That time with the message server

Chapter 1: First steps, baby steps

3. That time with the message server

One day, I had one of my greatest computer lessons that I still cherish to date. Oh, what a nightmarish moment that was. I’d had my fair share of dealing with frustrating users from hell, and after a particularly maddening interaction, I was feeling a bit more snarky than usual. It was the umpteenth time I’d had to explain the same super easy and documented procedure to the same user, and patience had worn thin. Without thinking, I composed an email that was both condescending and scolding, outlining the solution in the harshest tones I could muster. A classic RTFM message.

I hit the send button, thinking that it would finally get the message across. Little did I know that I had set myself up for a truly cringe-worthy situation. As I closed my email client and leaned back in my chair, I got a reply of the message from a guy who was definitely not the intended recipient! My heart sank as I realized what had happened.

With a sense of impending doom, I opened the email and scrolled right, into a hidden part of the message to check the recipients. My laziness had me copy an old email with the procedure that was originally sent to…well… everyone this side of the ocean! I had inadvertently sent my scathing email to all the pharmaceutical representatives in Europe. Every. single. one. of. them.

My desk, which had been a place of tech gadgets and quirky humor, suddenly felt like the scene of a disaster. Panic set in as I realized the implications of my mistake.

There were dozens of people across Europe who would receive an unsolicited message from me, their tech support contact, that was nothing short of embarrassing as it was clear I was scolding one specific user.

But, hey, this was the 90s and the email was still not mainstream. This meant that the users would have to dial into the server in order to download the message, but until then, I could still delete it from the server mailboxes. I had to act quickly. This was to date the most daunting task of all: manually deleting each and every offending message from each user directory of the server. It was a long and grueling night, typing away through countless messages, feeling the weight of each delete command as I tried to erase my unfortunate blunder. It was a painstaking process, and I couldn’t help but cringe with every click.

As the sun began to rise, I finally cleared the last of the emails from the server and sent out an apology email to those 5 users who did receive the message. The damage control was complete, but my pride was still in tatters. From that point on, I vowed to be extra cautious with my messages, rereading them at least ten times before hitting the send button. The fear of making the same mistake again loomed over me like a dark cloud, and still does!

My colleagues, those who had often joined me in light-hearted banter and sarcastic responses to absurd user queries, were surprisingly supportive. They understood that we all had our moments of frustration, and they offered their own stories of email mishaps to make me feel a little less foolish.

In the end, my unintentional message blunder served as a humbling reminder that no matter how experienced and knowledgeable we are in the world of tech, we’re all capable of making mistakes. It was a lesson in humility, professionalism, and the importance of treating every user with respect, no matter how challenging they might be. And it was a lesson I carried with me throughout my career, ensuring that my interactions with users were always marked by patience, empathy, and the utmost professionalism.

From that day forward, I learned to find more constructive ways to deal with frustrating user interactions, channeling my sarcastic wit into helpful and informative responses. I had come to understand that tech support wasn’t just about fixing technical issues; it was also about providing excellent customer service and ensuring that users left every interaction feeling valued and understood.

My colleagues and I continued to share stories and laughs, but the tone of our responses had evolved. We remained a team of tech enthusiasts who embraced our quirks and humor, but we also made sure that our interactions with users were always positive and helpful, no matter how challenging the situation. We channeled our goliardic strive towards ourselves: the screenshot pranck is just an example. And as for that fateful message incident, it remained a cautionary tale, a reminder to always double and triple-check before hitting the send button. It had been a painful experience, but it had also made me a better, more empathetic tech support representative. In the end, it was a lesson well learned in the world of tech support, in a time when the internet was still finding its way in Europe, and we were considered proper gurus for just being able to switch on a computer and understand the boot sequence.

Scary moment: you send an email with condescending and partly scolding instructions (for the umpteenth time) to the same user without realizing that in a hidden cc windows it is copied to all the reps of Europe. You spend the night manually deleting each message from the server and from then on you will reread your emails 10 times before hitting the send button.
the prompt

The Pink Datacenter – 1.2 – First “real” job

Chapter 1: First steps, baby steps

2. First “real” job

The year was 1995, and the internet had not yet become mainstream, at least in Europe. I was a 21-year-old girl with a passion for all things tech, using a whopping 1200 baud modem to connect with my BBS (Bulletin Board System) friends who shared my skills and interests. Little did I know that my affinity for computers would lead me to a job that was both easy and incredibly fun, with the exception of those users from hell.

With my unruly reddish hair, t-shirt and black pants, and a stride that was a mix of enthusiasm and defiance, I approached the work market with the only viable reason at that age: independence. I wanted my own house with my own rules, and I wanted them as soon as possible, so I searched for jobs that would make good use of my capabilities while giving the most money.

Now, you might be wondering what led me here. Well, it all started when I was a kid, taking apart my family’s VCR to see how it worked, and in general being the one that knows how to use technology in the house. My parents and elder boomer brother never understood my obsession, but they couldn’t deny that I had talent for all things tech related. So, naturally, I decided to make a career out of it.

I had always been aware that I didn’t exactly fit the typical mold of a computer whiz. Instead of being the classic bespectacled nerd, I was a young woman who embraced her uniqueness. My passion for technology was as fiery as my bright red hair, and I refused to let stereotypes or expectations define me.

Having now dropped out of computer science engineering at university, I found myself working at a software company that specialized in creating collaboration software for pharmaceutical representatives. My official title was “Customer Support Representative,” but in reality, my job encompassed a whole lot more. I helped users navigate our software, beta-tested new versions, and wrote user manuals. And oh, the tales I could tell from those early days in tech support.

 The technology

This was an American company that sold a framework to be customized by the local subsidiaries, not just with language but also with specific features. It was an old day’s collaboration software where the users would dial in via modem from their portable laptop (and portable meant 3-5kg weight for a Pentium processor with maybe 4Mb RAM!) to upload their client data and download updates and messages, via modem on the telephony line. The first versions had no GUI. The message server was internal only, typically a unix OS with a large DB, hosted on our company’s local servers (what we would now call private cloud), and not connected to the internet or to any other external mail server, so they could only communicate within the server and remote clients topology.

The job

My desk was a haven of tech gear, complete with the latest computers and gadgets, some personalization, and a coffee mug that declared “No, I won’t fix your computer”.

My coworkers were a mix of personalities. My cubicle neighbor, Mauro, a developer and dba, had the ultimate decorations: his dead tarantulas pinned into frames, where you could watch and observe these fascinating creatures without the fear of them jumping on you. This is where my love for spiders all started. I embraced my unique identity in the male-dominated tech world, and I was known for my sarcastic wit and love of all things geeky.

Some were tech-savvy and got my sense of humor, while others… well, let’s just say they were tech-challenged. But one thing was for sure: I could always count on my fellow geeks to make me laugh.

One day, I was sipping my coffee and browsing through a new beta version of our software when my phone rang. It was our receptionist, Lisa, who had a knack for spotting the “users from hell” before they even made it to my desk.

“Hey, there’s a user here who’s convinced their computer is possessed,” Lisa said, her voice laced with amusement.

I chuckled and grabbed my headset. “Send the call up, I’ll perform an exorcism.”

Moments later, I was speaking on the phone with a frazzled pharmaceutical rep named Mr. B. who talked as if he’d seen a ghost, and not the friendly Casper type.

“Please, you have to help me. It’s doing things on its own!” he exclaimed.

I tried to maintain a straight face (we were told to never laugh or even smile while on the phone as the receiving end might tell) but couldn’t help the smirk that crept in. “Don’t worry, I’ve dealt with poltergeist computers before.”

I asked him if the cursor was darting around the screen as if it had a mind of its own. I knew the culprit immediately: a malfunctioning trackpad. I guided him to discreetly disabled the trackpad, enabled it back, and the cursor finally obeyed commands. Mr. B was enthusiastic and promised to send the laptop for repairs along with flowers… I did not mention how I have always loathed flowers: they made a great gift for my female colleagues.

My colleagues overheard the commotion and joined in the fun. Stefano, a tennis player with a collection of famous players pictures on his desk, quipped, “If the touchpad acts up again, just sprinkle some holy water on it.” Mauro, who would be mocked forever for showing up in a complete blazer and vest suit on his first day of work, chimed in, “Or call the Ghostbusters. They’re good with all things supernatural.”

Days like these were the norm in my job, where I never knew what kind of tech-related escapade I’d encounter next. Some days, it meant helping a user understand the basics of copy-paste (yes, in 1995, not everyone had mastered it, especially on non-graphic operating systems). Other days, it was deciphering why a user’s keyboard was suddenly typing in hieroglyphics (language settings, folks).

My colleagues and I had a blast sharing stories of our most memorable interactions with users from hell. There was that time a user called because her computer was “smoking.” Turned out, it was just a dust bunny in the exhaust fan. Then, there was the infamous “any key” incident, where a user couldn’t find the “any key” to continue an installation.

This was also a time filled with pranks: when, finally, our computers donned the Windows GUI, we used to screenshot the desktop of an unaware colleague, hide all the icons and then use it as the background picture, measuring the time it took to realize why clicking on the icons had no effect.

As much as I enjoyed the camaraderie with my tech-savvy coworkers, I couldn’t escape the occasional frustration that came with dealing with users who had literally never seen a computer before and were forced by the company to use it on a daily basis to record all their interactions and work (free data entry!). But I reminded myself that patience was a virtue, and each interaction was an opportunity to educate and help someone in need.

Back in the realm of tech-savvy coworkers, we often engaged in friendly competitions of who could come up with the most sarcastic but helpful response to absurd user queries. It was a way to let off steam and share a laugh during those long days of troubleshooting.

One day, as we gathered around my desk, I received an email from a user named Robert. His message read, “My computer is making strange noises. It’s like a mix of beeping, buzzing, and quacking. Is it possessed?”

My colleagues erupted into laughter. Stefano, who had a vast collection of sci-fi novels, said, “Tell him it’s just a computer duck. They’re known to be quite mischievous.”

I couldn’t resist the temptation. I replied to Robert, “Don’t worry, it’s just your computer duck, a distant relative of the ghost mouse. They tend to get chatty when they’re hungry. Try feeding it some virtual breadcrumbs.”

My colleagues and I had a good laugh, but we also took our roles seriously. We were responsible for ensuring that our software worked seamlessly for the pharmaceutical representatives who relied on it for their daily tasks. We beta-tested new versions rigorously, squashing bugs, and provided valuable feedback to our development team.

As for the user manuals, I approached that task with my own unique flair. Instead of dry and technical instructions, I infused them with humor and relatable anecdotes. I wanted our users to feel like they were having a conversation with a friend, not wading through a dense technical document. It was a small touch, but it made a big difference in our users’ experience. In the world of tech support in 1995, sarcasm and humor were my allies. They helped me navigate the challenging waters of clueless users, and they brought joy and camaraderie to my interactions with fellow tech geeks. Every day brought a new adventure, a fresh challenge, and a tale that I was sure one day would be the subject of a book.

It’s 1995. internet is not mainstream yet in Europe. you are a 21-year-old girl with good computer skills, using a 1200 baud modem to connect with your BBS friends with similar skills. these people will become your best friends for life. You are hired by a software company that localizes a pharmaceutical collaboration sofwtare (or the grandfather of a crm) for reps. describe your workplace with wit and sarcasm as people act a bit funny seeing you are a woman and not the usual eye glassed nerd. Internet is not there yet, and your job is technical support to those poor reps, forced to use technology to ditch the daily paperwork for a free data entry.
your job is customer care representative, helping users with the software, and beta test the new versions, and writing user manuals. The  job is super easy and fun, except when dealing with users from hell. write with witty and sarcastic tone, adding conversations with unskilled computer users and funny colleagues who get it.
the prompt

Wait…what? Voice messages are back?

Yes, I realise I do not often fit in the demographic description of my generation and gender: I have always preferred everything digital, I am an introvert and a girl, some say a geek too, and, where possible, in the past 25 years, I have always tried to avoid voice calls in favour of any other digital channel.

So, last week I was in a meeting, at work, and got a Whatsapp notification from my nephew. She’s 21, a fashion blogger and university student, and incidentally also my kids’ baby sitter, so whenever I get a message from her during kids’time, it means it’s important and might also be an emergency. Finally I resolve, at the cost of looking very rude towards the person who is presenting in the meeting, to pick up the smartphone and check the message.

Imagine my reaction when _said_ message revealed itself to be a jaw-dropping, head-spinning, plain old voice message.

00dbc8983ada10e4b8ad9ffa9eda58b08a891d06

Obviously I couldn’t open it during the meeting, whereas any text message would have just taken half a glance to see its content and react. Also, I clearly felt like I just didn’t understand why. Why a voice message? I thought these died back in 2004 when I disabled my mobile voice mail and stopped using it altogether. I thought I got rid of voice because this generation is the native digital and is online 24-7, and so …why voice?

I cleared my throat, slipped the phone in my pocket and excused myself out of the meeting, then went to the restroom to play the bloody message: “Hi Paola, nothing urgent, I thought I better left you a voice message since I have too many things to tell you about the upcoming week’s appointments……”.

This is why – the answer is: laziness. Or, if you want, convenience and speed of a voice message against a typed one. Still.

I frantically typed back to never ever ever again send me a voice message when at work, because it scared me to death and took five of the longest minutes of my life to get its content, while a typed message would have been much quicker and easier, especially for NBD stuff.

She didn’t understand, she said. It’s a message so implicitly it means it’s not urgent. Otherwise she would have called. Plus, she’s not quick at typing (despite the fact she’s probably faster than me) so she prefers voice messages and all of her friends do it, too.

WTF. This is one of those moments when you know you don’t like the lesson you are being taught, but you still need to learn it. So I started paying attention around me and found them: young people that seem talking otp but are really listening to offline messages. Kids recording funny messages and sending them through social media sites. It is out there and I didn’t even realise it until it hit me in the face.

The Voice Message is back – who would have thought?

A day in the life of a digital working mom

It’s a Wednesday evening and I am checking my clockwork household organisation. It all revolves around digital and every bit is essential to my sanity and free time with the family, come the weekend.

Tomorrow a organic fruit and veggie box will be delivered to my door. If I am not home the doorman will keep it in his office, together with any other online shopping package, until I return in the evening. Every Sunday evening I check online its content and add more groceries to the box to save time.

The baby sitter just left so I pay her parking lot with an app while she leaves the house and gets into her car.

I just received an email from the kids’ school with the next year’s calendar so I dutifully copy it to my private calendar then sync it with the office calendar so I don’t mess up at recitals like I did last year (when I booked an exam in London the day my son had the school recital and had to assist to the rehearsal with all the grandparents).

While I am on a phone call, I scan the pantry and fridge and list on my mobile app any missing items, then order them with one-click-next-hour-delivery.

I still have some time for shopping: the kids need new clothes for the season (not for fashion reasons but more because they simply outgrow the clothes and look like tiny franken-smurfs). So I order the new clothes – very easy since I always use the same brand, I just need to size up -sometimes adding something new for the hubby who (strangely enough) hates all forms of clothes shopping.

I also just received a promo discount from a fashion online shop so I immediately log in and move my wishlist items into the cart – I was waiting for the promo to get those items. I am now incidentally also happy as a clam.

My kids, born 2009 and 2012 have never seen in our house any of the following: CD, DVD, vinyls, cassettes, VHS, TV ads or local TV. When they want to watch cartoons, it’s either from an IP-TV or out of our NAS (so it’s checked and safe content, no ads or weird stuff). Also, we have a rule to only watch TV in English, which is not their native language. They initially hated it but now are sort of OK and fast learning English…in a few years they’ll secretly thank me while their therapist will have to address their troubled existences. While the kids watch TV I prepare dinner and at the same time browse Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and my RSS feed for news. The groups on Whatsapp are also typically active at this time of day, which makes me super-busy with _ basically_ pure online fun and some other daily organisation, as the _much dreaded_ school moms’ group is organising some activity with the kids.

Since tomorrow I have a business trip, I use the taxi app to book one that will fetch me in front of my door tomorrow morning at 6 am.

My daughter shows me a slip from her music teacher: new books need to be ordered, so I find those with next day delivery and add them to my cart. The alternative would have been to wait until I am back from my trip, and lose the big birthday party of her best friend on Saturday.

My wearable meanwhile is sending me notifications that I have reached my goal of daily steps and stairs. This does not happen really often, as on average I spend most of the workdays sitting at my desk, so I guess this is why the wearable is soooo excited about it…

The vet sends in the blood test results, via email, of our 14 years old cat who suffers from toothache: she will be fixed next Friday morning so I respond to the email and put the appointment in my calendar.

The children are screaming they want ice-cream after dinner, so to make them stop and get some silence I open the delivery app and order their favourite flavors, that will be on my doorstep in less than 30 mins. cool. literally. 🙂

With an app I switch off the music and turn on the TV. They’ll be able to manage using the remote browser. Then I open the door to my groceries delivery and set all products in the pantry/fridge. I always envision my kids as grown-ups and living on their own, on their first week alone suddenly calling me _in panic_ asking me why no groceries have arrived at their door yet. I’ll have to teach them the back-office part of this miracle one of these days. For now they are helping me put everything away and chatting with the delivery guy.

Our lives are so full of meetings, work, activities and stuff, that technology has become essential to having some free time at the end of the day and in weekends. Honestly I could not care less of spending an afternoon clothes shopping, unless it’s a special treat, in which case I try and add more errands to it (it’s the multi-task bug that infects new mothers and probably never goes away).

mom-juggle

Online shopping is convenient, safe, private and quick. I would not have it any other way, especially when the kids open the packages in a frenzy of excitement and fun, kind of like when we were kids at Christmas. Only, it’s just another ordinary digital day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rise of the digital bookworm

I have always been an avid reader since the time my mom, for my 11th birthday, gave me a library card for a present. It was one of the best presents of my life.

In my youth I used to plan my holidays according to how many books I needed in my bags, and there was often a whole heavy piece of luggage dedicated to those papery things.

Fast forward to this summer, where I have totally embraced my e-reader and its entire philosophy.

Yes there is no “paper feeling”, and the old fashioned cover judgement is not really a viable option, but I was able to read almost incessantly for my entire holiday, thanks to the kids being a bit more manageable on the beach, and the fact that I could hop onto any public WiFi and buy the next book in no time.

How is that for a digital transformation? 🙂

Also, because I read books in English (it’s not my first language and it helps keeping up), in the past finding good paperback best sellers in English was something complicated in faraway seaside desolate lands, so it had to be solely planned in advance. If I finished my stack earlier I had to revert to Italian books from the local store, sometimes not even my genre.

In my rich three weeks’ vacation (the most I had in 10 years) I was able to devour a total of 12 books, which is more than I was ever able to accomplish even in my own mother tongue, even in the university days.

What is the point I’m trying to make? That this is exactly the core of a digital transformation: when the experience gets so immensely better than the non-digital (analogue? I still have that thing) that it reaches a point of no return, and you are transformed not only as an actor but also as the end-user of what this transformation is all about.

Embrace your e-readers because they don’t mean paper books are dead. I still have a full library in my house, and although I am buying most e-books nowadays, sometimes I add to this library some piece that I want to leave for my kids to read, or books that brought an important message or meaning to me, or just super-silly books that I find entertaining or with a precious cover that I want to touch and admire.

But the convenience of reading 12 books in my holiday is something worth every inch of this digital transformation.

ebook-clip-art

 

Out of curiosity, these are the 12 books:

  • Into thin air – Jon Krakauer
  • The Promise – Freda Lightfoot
  • Where’d you go, Bernadette – Maria Semple
  • About Grace – Anthony Doerr
  • The Uncoupling – Meg Wolitzer
  • The heart goes last – Margaret Atwood
  • All the light we cannot see – Anthony Doerr
  • The Vegetarian – Han Kang
  • The Other Child – Lucy Atkins
  • Sparrow – L.J.Shen
  • The danish girl -David Ebershoff
  • Transition – Iain M. banks

A broken link on the IVR tree? seriously?

ahhhh…holiday time and people frantically and happily using travel services! This until an exception occurs, and then, as a user, you are prompted with some of the worst examples of customer experience ever configured in the past 20 years:

  • on websites, when you need help, before you are actually prompted with contact options you need to disentangle yourself from a literal maze of Q&As , FAQs, instructions, banners, etc…so that when you finally get to a contact option you are already half pissed off. This is somehow called “deflection” and I have already treated this topic in previous posts.
  • let’s talk about contact options, as there is really only one option: phone numbers, not even toll free. No digital channels although it would make totally sense, since you are navigating and operating in digitised mode, why not offer a chat or email together with the old phone? Are your clients not also millennials who we now know prefer chat over voice?
  • I even stumbled in a badly broken IVR tree where they would give me the option to change support language and access to a larger pool of agents, but when pressing the instructed key nothing happens and you keep getting prompted the option again. Seriously? Did you not test your whole tree before putting it into productions, as per 1997 best practices guidance???

thank God this is only happening once a year, then, as CX recipients, we’ll be back with the usual stuff.

I’m back…and so is NPS!

If you were wondering why I haven’t posted for a while now, it’s because on top of thCCXP Logoe usual work-family load, I have embarked in the CCXP certification, which I was able to get at the end of June (yayy!).

While I was studying the CX transformations that companies went through in the past 3-4 years, which somehow revolves around “the ultimate question” to users and consumers, I sometimes raised my head and noticed that there is a big wave of Net Promoter Programs that is hitting Europe at this time. As a customer and consumer, I have been now asked the question at least 7 times from different companies in the past 2 months only, all varying from bank institutions, to airlines, mobile operators, hotels and healthcare insurances. The cutest one, was in the form of a Whatsapp mobile chat with the brand (on a web page), asking the nps question and the open ended comment. They are all asking the same thing, with different levels of variation, but having studied thoroughly what a Net Promoter program is within a company, I now realise where this is getting us.

The greatest achievement of NPS, so far, has been something no other metric within the CX world ever dared to: it was able to link emotions to revenue. Emotions come from the complex evaluation mechanism that make you, as a user, decide to recommend a brand to your friends and family. Reasons for this evaluation are so complex that relevant statistics analysis can be applied to some extend to split the subset of emotions leading to the final score. But linking it to revenue? This is the beauty of it: you can finally understand why brands that become trendy and fashionable also increase their revenues substantially and on the other side, why brands that are providing mediocre experiences are set to, basically, disappear in the mid-long term.

So the CCXP exam, or to better phrase it, the books I read to pass the exam  (suggestions in the bottom), were really eye-openers to me, as in the past I simplistically considered NPS as a quick metric, while in a serious program it’s clear that it is so much more.

And its wave is coming so strong that my recommendation to all those companies that are still sceptical or unaware of such program, is to start quickly working on it, or prepare to be out of market in a few years.

Finally this also brought some consciousness as a consumer: I now know what to expect from a serious company doing NPS. With a low or very low score, the closed loop-back process implies that I should be contacted and given voice to report my issues. It means that I am valued as a customer and that the company is keen on fixing any issue to keep doing business with me.

But wait…. what if I don’t get any feedback? 🙂

 

good NPS reading: these books were suggested to me by a nice colleague who is a true CX expert, and I have to admit they all were eye opening.

AI and CX?

From Mobile World Congress 2016 to the recent F8 ten year roadmap speech, AI is definitely one of the hottest technology trends. And specifically, AI in the customer experience, which  is the front-line of any expectation towards a company has been buzzing for a while as an innovation topic.

News from the several AI experiments are not much reassuring: Tay’s Meltdown proved once again what my university professor would say of computer science, “garbage in- garbage out”.

So on one side we would love to have computers help us with our CX, but on the other it looks really risky as any AI exposed to the public can be manipulated to reflect bad, racist or inappropriate responses to apparently innocent questions, sometimes just for the sake of it, others because of a specific sabotage schemed to bring it down.

Within Customer Experience, the relationship with automation has always been controversial. Would a customer like to be served by a robot and to what extent? Why would a company want to invest significant amounts of time and money to expose its front-line and most visible asset to malpractice and gruesome attacks from trolls and hackers?

The problem of any AI is, obviously, the learning. So probably the mistake from Microsoft was to trust the public network to be truthful and honest when teaching conversational skills to its bot.

Having worked in the customer experience realm for many years, I would never trust a bot to learn from public behaviour over social media: imagine your new hire agent sent to learn conversational skills and empathy…in the street?

but….on the other hand, I know that these guys (the CX teams) are literally sitting on a pile of interaction recordings that are rarely used, unless for some sparse quality management or compliance regulation. So why not use this big data to teach an AI, in a controlled, business-like though still real-life environment, how a conversation about your own brand or product should evolve? This idea might not be new but I haven’t seen anyone even testing it yet. Probably the biggest refrain is that AI projects are still in an experimental phase, are very expensive and bring little certainty of results.

But think about this: if you could have your new hire listen to thousands of hours of work conversations to learn how to address issues, how to talk to customers, how to properly escalate, how to behave in the interaction realm, and all in the business language of your own brand and company! This would be impossible for any human being, but for a bot…well, no big deal.

And the result: a perfectly trained agent ready to respond to your most difficult inquiries like your best skilled agent. Also, because every contact centre is different from the other, their recordings will result in different and more accurate learning and behaviour of the same AI. Isn’t AI in such case a dream come true?

As consumers, we probably would not care that the responses come from a bot, especially with digital channels where there is no voice and tracking a bot might be really tricky, and in the end, what matters most is the CX perception, not the reality. 🙂

 

 

 

 

social customer care: you’re doing it wrong!

In preparation for a customer meeting around social customer care, I am browsing through Twitter and Facebook looking for customer care requests: I can see a lot of variations of #badcx, so I thought it’d be interesting to put together a list of what NOT to do when your customers are complaining or asking help publicly via social media:

  1. If the rant is specific to a common issue that many other are experiencing, you don’t want to just respond but to show everyone how to fix the problem so that the same experience can be shared among peer customers.
  2. When a user is ranting about something that went bad with your company or product, this means that they probably already tried to contact you via phone or email and typically this is their last resort. So the ideal answer cannot be “please contact us at 800…”. The response should be immediate and in-channel. If personal information are involved, publicly switch to DM or Messenger and then try and contact the customer directly.
  3. If there is a help request that can be solved by providing technical or product information, by all means provide those info publicly! Not only the requester will be happy as cake, but the love will spread to other users that are maybe searching for the same info on your very website!
  4. When you are a large global company, sometimes issues can only be resolved at field level. This does not mean you can’t include them in the public social conversation! At minimum, you should show the customer that you have passed on the information, and they will be contacted by the local branch. Responding to go to the local store…well…reads just #badcx.
  5. Again, even if you are a large corporation with lots of department and employees, if a customer resorted to public shaming you, responding that you are “just the social media team” does not help improving the perception of your company. Consumers don’t care about your internal organization: if the social media team has your official brand, then it is the company front page as your contact centre is the front door voice.
  6. If a user is so frustrated that they posted the same comment on your timeline over and over again, it’s not enough just to respond to one: every single message is potentially dangerous and searchable, and must be addressed with care. Wouldn’t it be the same if they took the time to make 10 complain calls at your contact centre? Or would you drop the line at the second call because you already answered?
  7. And last but not least…the language. If you are a global corporation in 20 countries it might be assumed you also support the local language of your operations. Responding to a public tweet or post in a different language is not considered polite, unless you offer an explanation and at least a tentative translation with any of the commonly offered free on-line tools. Also, there are lots of translators out there, in case of lack of skilled resources.

My overall impression is that you can immediately spot when social marketing teams are responding to customer care inquiries: the language is perfect and polished, the responses look pre-approved and are always politically correct, but the results?

Companies need to start providing decent social customer care, and they can make this decision easily by just browsing their own pages and accounts today.

 

 

 

Perspective (and the guy with flip flops)

Yesterday evening I was having a fine dinner with some colleagues. A very international and diverse bunch, all with several years of experience in the CX and contact centre and telephony realms.

This guy beside me was telling a story: when he was once visiting my country with his family, the company he worked for at the time begged him to go to a customer, to fix a huge problem. He gladly accepted to help, though remarking he did not have any business wear, and so he would go there with flip flops. And shorts. He was kind of ashamed telling this, as he would not consider it very nice to go to a customer in flip flops, but had no alternative as the issue was rapidly escalating, so off he went.

While he was telling the story I suddenly realized I had been involved in that same story. Although I did not know his name at the time, he was a legend among the technical staff as “the guru in flip flops and shorts”. Everyone was in awe of how the guy presented himself, so sure of his technical skills to not need any business clothes (in a country that is mostly obsessed with clothes and appearance, sometimes even the washing machine technician is wearing a tie).

The customer back then was _delighted_ not so much from the casual wear, but from the fact that the problem was fixed in seconds and all was back to normal again. Thanks to the guy in flip flops, who then became this legendary, quirky technical guru.

Fast forward a few (many) years and now the guy in flip flops may represent your best CX experience.

When we are offered any customer experience, are we ready to skip formality in order to receive a better service? do we perceive CX quality or also its form? Do we care more about form, appearance or substance, actuality?

I personally think the times would be ready now for the guy in flip flops. 🙂