Is Customer Service Extinct?

In my career, I have managed customer service departments, within some very large and small corporations training my associates in the art of taking complete care of the customer. Going above and beyond for the customer, and handling the irate customer.  I was met with blank stares as employees did not have a clue to what I was talking about.  Imagine how those stares worsened, when I began teaching how to keep a customer from becoming an irate customer.

I have always been amazed at how difficult this concept was for many employees and even some CEO's to grasp, and yet we are all consumers, and we all know exactly how we want to be treated, but still it seemed like such a daunting task for employees to understand that taking complete care of the customer has been and will remain one of the major components to a any company's continued success.

Companies today are implementing automated customer care systems that can be both beneficial and detrimental to the overall success of any business. The reason for the automated systems is to feed the need of today's customer to have access to simple transactions more quickly, by pushing a set of numbers. This can work fine for simple bank transactions, shipping information, product order and distribution, but is detrimental to any business, and any customer, when a problem arises.

And I must tell you, problems will arise at some point.  Automated systems tend to make matters worse, when a serious problem arises and the customer cannot get a hold of a live person for resolution!  So by the time the customer does reach a real person, he or she is so frustrated that this agent now has the task of satisfying the irate customer. Can they? Do they resolve the problem?

My experience says very rarely.  Unfortunately, now that companies have gone to automation systems, the training quality of the customer service agent severely lacks the compassion, sympathy, and skill to effectively resolve the customers issue.

This has become a major problem in todays world.  Proper customer service is a Dinosaur in today's world.  It has long been proven that all customers expect a problem, even though they are agitated by the problem, they all understand that problems may arise.  How efficiently the problem is resolved is what the customer needs in order to remain a long term customer.

We also know that a resolution results in repeat business. Customers will talk about how great this company handled their problem, and how resolution was reached quickly.  This is the Dinosaur that is quickly becoming extinct.

In today's world, our society wants everything now.  Technology has spoiled us, as we now have cell phones, enormous amounts of drive-thru's for everything from prescriptions, to picking up laundry, to getting our lunch, and even picking up a quick cup of coffee on the way to work.  Technology is good, and we all enjoy the benefits of it,  but is it really worth it?

The disadvantages for the company is when they lose a customer, because the automation system cannot solve big problems, and the agents, who often are reading from a script are not trained to handle the big problems.

The disadvantage for the customer is they lose that human touch, and resolution can be a daunting headache and time consuming.  I will always be a customer service fanatic. I believe we need to bring back the Dinosaur and train our staff to efficiently and effectively handle our customers and their issues. I believe it is the single best investment any company can make.  If agents are trained properly to handle these problems that will arise, this can and will increase any businesses longevity.