The “Applification” of Customer Service

June 16, 2010 in Service Please with 0 Comments

I was listening to a CrankyGeeks podcast recently where one of the guests mentioned the word “applification” in reference to entertainment media, specifically TV and the appearance of apps on televisions. That started me thinking about what role apps might play in the customer service realm.


Apps as they are called have been developed to deliver a very specific set of functionality as one may have seen on many modern smartphones out today. Some of those apps available offer customers direct access to a retail store, online shop, their bank and so on. But what could be the role of apps in designing a customer service solution?

One could immediately think of examples from current call center functionalities such as a “sales app”, “support app”, “billing app” and maybe a “help me app”. The same breakdown is also seen on web pages and even department stores. But this is not the way designers of Customer Experience solutions approach their tasks typically today.

“Sorry, I cannot help you with that, please get in the other line….”

We have all experienced that whether online or inline. The real brilliance of the “app” method is the stringing together of related apps, having them intelligently adjust their presence depending where a client is currently positioned. If you take a traditional example of the shop owner greeting a customer, reading their state, demeaner, situation and adjusting their approach while interacting with the customer, they were just stringing together multiple apps and moving seemlessly between each. Granted, that example might be a bit dated but I think you get the idea.

So, what role can “apps” play in designing customer service solutions? How could the applification of customer service be used to allow services to more smartly move customers along the path while delivering a unique, personal customer experience? Looking forward to your comments.

Andrew

“Innovating the customer experience is the ’secret sauce’”

May 31, 2010 in Service Please with 0 Comments

I found this post regarding how Google/Apple have out performed major US Banks in recent years by using some “secret sauce”. Brett King over at www.banking4tomorrow.com recently posted about how innovating the customer experience is bringing gains and how the financial industry is not keeping par.

I recently tweeted about standing at my bank’s terminal on a Sunday evening trying to get cash and the machine running some routine telling me it would be with me shortly. Sure.

So, what do banks as well as insurance companies need to do to “innovate” and engage their customer as well as potential customers? Recent times have seen the move away from the agent or teller providing that all important customer service to more online or automated handling most of which had been created (it seems) during the last century. Not much has improved since then.

“Innovating the customer experience and making “it” really simple to use”

When contacting my bank by phone I am sent down a spiral of IVR prompts suggesting next steps which are usually not the ones I had intended. All the while I am thinking “you have my money. is this what I get in return”. There are not many other providers we contact where the customer has that thought in their heads. This is a unique position of a financial institution as well as opportunity. If this is managed correctly the entire customer experience could greatly improve.

You have all my money, is this all I get?

If only the banks had that in theirs when developing customer service solutions.

Initial Post on ServicePlease!

May 14, 2010 in Service Please with 0 Comments

Time to get this going. I see samples of good and poor customer service almost daily and this seems to be tilting more to the poor. Why I am starting a blog? Here are a few questions I have been asking myself:

  • Why is this?
  • What has changed in the last 20 or so years?
  • What have companies been trying in an attempt to improve the service they are offering?
  • What has failed to improve services?
  • Why many customer service organizations just alone cannot fix the situation?
  • What technologies are there which might help and examples of how this has been done?
  • Demonstrations of great examples of excellent customer service being offered.

It is time to get going. Hope this is perhaps informative but more so, brings about much exchange. I am always looking for excellent customer service solutions!

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