Technoservice

Technology-driven tools are shifting power into the hands of savvy customers who will not tolerate service delays, unempowered agents and scripted responses. This non-technical book explains in plain language how the emergence of customer-facing mobile apps, social media, virtual worlds, web collaboration and online communities, coupled with the proliferation of cloud-based contact center interaction tools and customer experience management systems, is transforming traditional customer service for both large and small companies. Technoservice may be augmented by business operations support for established customer service environments (i.e., facilities, staffing, scheduling, training, empowerment and incentives), or may exist as a non-mediated service to customers via the Internet. The business case for this approach is that it minimizes costs and maximizes customer satisfaction, while effectively gathering critical business intelligence data. In order to realize this outcome, a company must focus on the three critical areas of process, integration and knowledge. This book explains how process-driven systems, multichannel user interaction, streamlined content provisioning and data gathering can substantially improve customer satisfaction. Traditionally, one of the biggest problems for customer service executives has been how to balance employee productivity and efforts to encourage customer loyalty within the constraints of a budget designed to rigorously contain costs. While this mindset persists today, at least for some corporate thought leaders a renewed focus on the end-to-end customer ‘experience’, the emergence of social media and the perceived need to monitor and react to virtual ‘tribes’ of online customers has loosened the purse strings when it comes to centralized customer service. By implementing processes, tools and knowledge bases that facilitate a timely and relevant response to a customer’s inquiry or problem, management are seeking a significant return on investment in the form of customer loyalty. There are three major business needs which continue to impact the evolution of Technoservice. These are customer satisfaction, cost reduction and business intelligence. Specific goals may be attributed to these needs, such as resolving a customer inquiry or problem on the first contact, maximizing customer access to agents or databases, gathering customer data, and providing tools for business analysis. Overview of this book “Fundamentals” discusses the evolution of the modern customer service environment and the business drivers behind every successful customer service operation - customer satisfaction, cost reduction and business intelligence. “Process” considers those processes which are most relevant to the customer service environment, including a detailed overview of the quality improvement, data gathering, escalations, and follow-up work processes. “Channels” describes the various manifestations of Technoservice, including voice, self-service, email, chat and other media. “Integration” focuses on the technologies that are transforming customer service and how these are being integrated. This chapter also takes a critical look at the traditional role of systems development in contact centers. “Content” examines the differences between knowledge bases and intelligent troubleshooting systems, and how these systems can be used in a customer service environment. “Intelligence” focuses on Technoservice as an integral contributor to business planning by describing data gathering, analysis and information sharing functions and processes.