Why offshore to call centres employing cheap labour when software can do the same job at an even lower cost?
That's the promise of some vendors touting self-service CRM technology. RightNow Technologies CEO Greg Gianforte said as much when visiting silicon.com a couple of weeks ago, pointing to knock-on effects of using his brand of customer relationship management.
And this week has even seen one well-known analyst house suggest this applies to a channel most people know well, the telephone.
Datamonitor has forecast speech-enabled self-service will more than double as a market, to become worth $1.2bn in North America by 2008 and $1bn in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by the same year.
We hear about bigger markets all the time but that certainly isn't chump change.
But is it realistic? Web-based self-service is in many ways already tried and tested. How many of us use FAQs, Q&A sections and more advanced sections of websites rather than talk to another human? Quite a few, we bet.
The organisations that set up their services this way - and there are many - know the bottom line difference such an approach makes.
But are we going to say that, at those moments when we have to use a phone or want to 'press for an agent to call you', we think speech-recognition is going to work? For some functions maybe. But for many others, it'll only be another obstacle before we get through to a real person, whether they're based in South Shields or South Africa.
The cost of call using speech automation software may be 15 to 25 per cent that of a call handled by an agent in India, as Datamonitor says, but when that can be a cost in addition to a subsequent call to a call centre it is easy to see why many organisations will take a wait-and-see approach.
A lot of people will keep on pressing 0 to speak to an operator - or pretending they don't have a touch tone phone.
Comments
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1. Andy Holcombe
We at Netonomy would agree that too many self-service technologies touted today are too focused on reducing costs. Rather than improving customer service, they actually keep the customer safely at arms length. Informational or knowledge based self-service, such as online FAQs and Q&As, too often answer the wrong questions and cause customer frustration.
Transaction-based self-service, as employed by operators across Europe such as Orange, Vodafone and SFR, actually encourages customer interaction. Where knowledge-based self-service deflects users away from direct contact, transactional online self-service allows users to access their personal details, services, and so on. Crucially, customers can make changes – providing genuine interaction with their business, where the customer is actually welcomed in. Transactional self-service is currently the invisible success story, but this approach is set to grow as customers become increasingly dissatisfied all answers and no action.
2. Davin Yap
Self-service is a combination of 'informational' and 'transactional' (and according to Gartner, 'functional' an intelligent combination of the two).
So far, the limelight has been on the informational side of self-service because it is the quickest for an firm to adopt, and it provides rapid ROI (even increasing online sales conversions if implemented correctly). The problem, as Andy Holcombe points out, is that many informational self-service solutions are poorly thought-out and are based on ineffective technology (a regular search engine won't work - ask me if you're interested in why). Others use technology that takes experts to setup and maintain - often this doesn't happen and customers end up with a poor experience.
'Transactional' self-service tends to be driven by internal IT departments since it requires interfacing to the core back-end systems of a firm. This takes longer, but is certaily worthwhile doing. However, a pure 'transactional' system won't help you fix your Playstation or decide which insurance policy is best for you, so there is a role for both types of systems a Customer Interaction Hub (in Gartner speak).
3. anonymous
For old people and many mentally disabled people to have to spend many minutes going through "menus" before speaking to a real live person must be so frustrating. Bring back the old fashioned service, it is people who matter in the long run.
4. Andrew Flack
It’s all in the balance. Self-help can enable large numbers of people to find the answers to their query, or it can be used to keep people at bay. If your phone system is melting down because everyone is asking the same question then a voice or web based self help mechanism that is 'up to date' with what is actually being asked can both save costs and improve customer service for the majority. The problem comes with a 'one size fits all' approach rather than an integration between telephone / web-chat / self help / desktop takeover etc where each can be deployed in a timely fashion if the previous level cannot cope or is bypassed by the enquirer.
The crucial test will be how long people are willing to hang on a phone for the answer, and what frame of mind they are in when they give up or get the answer.
Customer service should be giving those who want to phone, a number that isn’t clogged up, those that want to do it themselves, an up to date and concise self help system and those that want guidance or contact via a web chat, the facility to choose it. We all know that good customer service is also good for the business, retaining and attracting customers, what can be difficult is proving an ROI across bunkered budgets where what is good for one department may take the lead. As an addition to the choices voice recognition may be a good idea. The proof will be in how many people decide to use that route out of preference rather than lack of choice.