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I was recently working with a Healthcare Insurance operations executive servicing Medicare. She had some interesting perspectives on providing customer service through their web portal as opposed to their phone-based call center. The thought was that the portal was a more logical and cost-efficient pathway for self-service. The phone channel comes with costs to support infrastructure and agents, and can also be a slower pathway for customers to resolve several types of issues. I can appreciate why someone would have this perception. But looking deeper, keeping a robust phone channel still makes a lot of sense and should be an integral part of your customer service strategy.

Customers still call customer service for inquires, this has not changed. They want to use other channels to communicate, but as soon as they encounter any form resistance, they call. They then transfer to agents at an alarmingly high rate. What is the “key” to unlocking Digital Deflection? It is their mobile phone number.

As a customer of Capital One, I signed up to receive SMS notifications when a recent charge hits an account to prevent both fraud and to track online purchases of my four children. The buzz word of the day is “bots” and the need to use natural language and artificial intelligence as the next “game changer” in support of your customers. The Capital One story provides some interesting tidbits on the benefits of a proactive notification strategy and its link to the development of a first generation chatbot.

I just did a quick Google search and realized that I could read or watch about 10 million blogs, whitepapers, and webinars on the infamous “top 5” or “top 10” trends related to customer service. I estimate that it will actually take until 2019 to get through all the material so perhaps I will miss out on 2018 altogether. Bad humor aside, I thought I would list 3 customer service experiences that need to end in 2017. I could do 5, 10, or probably 20 but here is the top 3:

The days when people worked only at traditional workstations, seated at a desk with a computer, paper in-tray and notebook in front of them, are long gone. Increasingly, people work while they are on the go, using tablets and phones to communicate and access their data.