Customer (s)Care

Technological innovation and customer service: the hopes and fears of a manager

The buinding and consolidation of a healthy relationship between the company and its customers is a theme that arises with the companies themselves, and can be counted among the discussions that go through time and are re-proposed across consecutive managerial generations. The enabling factors of change are likely to be always the same, like technology and its promises to improve the service offered achieving consistent internal savings at the same time. Conceptually, the introduction of AI and RPA in recent years replicates what happened with the advent of IVR (Integrated Voice Recognition) methodologies at the beginning of the 2000s. Now, as then, the innovative drive is based on the expectations placed on a new technological paradigm that enables the possibility of managing at the same time increasing operating volumes, shrinking qualified human resources (today called “talents”) and expanding customer expectations. Therefore, knowledge of past events and how previous leaderships have dealt with them allows current ones to access additional, alternative and low-cost decision-making elements for their own determinative processes. Let me try to summarize it in three practical tips coming from my “old wise” experience for those who manage, or will have to manage, Customer Care structures in the near future.

?1 - Always adopt an opportunistic and conservative approach

Especially in the initial stages, when new tools appear on the market, the Customer Care management finds itself having to handle elements that are still lacking in demonstrative historicity with respect to the results that can be obtained, and whose technical outlines are not yet consolidated. In practice, new technologies (always) promise to change the world, or at least the Customer Service World, but there is no guarantee of their success. Their overall cost, which is by definition high, finally increase the risk of return on investment, whatever its measurement is. Therefore, when a decision has to be made, "early adopters" fight with opponents that are pretty conservative, with an articulation of variously differentiated intermediate positions. What should be a choice dictated by a careful evaluation of the pros and cons often turns into an emotional choice dictated by the desire to acquire a competitive advantage through the speed of movement, or worse still to align with a dominant common feeling ("if everyone talks about it, it is certainly an advantageous technology"). On the other hand, when prudence takes it all, there is a risk of giving up concrete opportunities for improving Customer Care, relegating it to a follower position compared to competitors. Moreover, everything is set in a general economic context where medium term outlook, if not even short, such that the implementation times will end up transforming any failures into a heavy inheritance borne by a management that at the time of the initial decision was not yet in place. This is an interesting issue of sustainability, which as of now has not been well dealt in the economic literature. No modern manager can be said to be such, in my opinion, if he has not found himself managing at least one "poisoned legacy" let by a previous management. In my specific case, the settlement and improvement of critical situations in the banking and insurance industry has turned into my real professional asset so far. Anyway, in situations of change of the technological paradigm, as if AI and RPA certainly are, I have often taken advantage of an intermediate approach in their introduction into the Customer Care I managed. First, I have always cut down the cost-benefit ratio by renouncing the role of first mover to the advantage of a more concrete, later examination, based on market reactions and on the real technological maturity of the innovations. In doing so, I was often able to apply an opportunistic choice within the sub-categories into which the technology of the moment was organised, choosing those parts that best suited my operating and business model. A further advantage, I was able to identify the providers most suited to my needs, choosing them from those who had demonstrated on the ground, with successful initiatives, to be able to provide a "delivery" at the level of my expectations. A strategy that never allowed me to get into the spotlight, but that delivered the best product at the most reasonable price at the same time to the customer base and to the companies I worked for.

?2 – Before everything, get the right visibility into the Board

?McKinsey's annual report on the state of Customer Care indicates that the main priorities perceived by CC-Leaders for the next three years are the ability to retain and motivate talent, improve the Customer Experience, increase the number of requests handled independently by the customer and reduce costs. I tend to disagree with this view, the analysis needs to be broadened. In an economic context oriented towards competitiveness, the management of the client lever is strategic for the achievement of any result. Every marketing student is able to easily demonstrate that retaining an existing customer is much more profitable than acquiring a new one, but this statement is not reflected within the Boards of Directors. Three years ago, I personally carried a field research in LinkedIn involving about one hundred Customer Care Managers from different sectors in different countries. I was able to demonstrate that Customer Service managers do not became CEOs, are never C-Level, they, do not enter the Boards and often do not even represent an autonomous entity but are often integrated into unique divisions with operations or IT. Consequently, they have non-influencing positions when decisions about Customer Strategy are made, and they find themselves applying strategies that they do not know and do not understand sometimes. Moreover, strategies are made by Senior Managers who in turn do not know well the specificities and specific mechanisms of Customer Care. The result is inevitably a lower than expected result, with higher costs than estimated. However, it is not a problem of delivery or technology; it is a matter of approach. If the top management does not master the singularity of Customer Care, position it as a cornerstone of the general strategy will not lead to a real competitive advantage. This is a very complex and sometimes untold problem. Companies need to prove they are truly sensitive when it comes to customers. Some steps have been taken through the establishment of the Customer Advocacy functions, but this is not enough. I believe the time has come to go further and evaluate interventions such as the definition of career paths for top positions that also include background in Customer Care, and the appointment of Independent Board Members with specific focus on customership. Therefore, the choices in terms of talent retention, the improvement of the customer experience, the balanced management of costs and the technological implementation will become the enabling levers of a strategy supported by the top management, with therefore a greater probability of success. Returning, more pragmatically, to practical advice, my suggestion to CC-Manager in the process of introducing new technologies is to ensure robust sponsorship within the Board. A figure who interprets the complexity of the change and translates it into understandable indications for the highest company levels, with enough authority and representativeness also to stop an apparently winning project ("sexy" was said in the early years Two thousand) because incompatible with the company reality.

?3 – Welcome the experts, but you lead the project

All the technological innovation projects that I have seen successful, have the same element in common: solid technical and business skills merged together, but with leadership clearly allocatet to the Business. This apparently simple and reasonable statement contains the highest organizational complexity, as it involves delicate and important company equilibrium. Allocation of resources and their responsibilities, funding and management of budgets, sourcing & procurement, elements of integrated communication to align the different work groups and update sponsors and management. These are all factors, which, if aligned and coordinated effectively, allow the mechanism to proceed on its path without being stuck and above all by producing an acceptable, if not optimal, result. It is a very difficult job, a real artwork that is mastered by few people but which makes the difference between success and failure. Very often, I have seen wonderful technologies dropped from above on operational realities that were unable to incorporate them as they worked on different processes with incompatible organizations. The result was invariably a negotiation game with a bunch of compromises that limited the IT potential, dissatisfied internal customers, sent time and costs out of control. In the financial area I deal with, where everything happens while the organizational machine proceed at full capacity, a very high risk. Conversely, I have seen and led work groups in which Senior Management sensed the potential of innovation and gave a clear mandate to the Business to integrate it in compliance with existing operations and with full support from IT. This not only works, but it is a winner game. For this reason, my strong recommendation to those who approach the introduction of new technologies in Customer Care is to ensure a project structure like the one I have described, with highly skilled professionals in command.

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Changing in Customer Care by introducing technological innovations is not a recent science, and is not a rocket science, but is a kind of art, as we talked about it in this short article. “There is no simple answer to difficult questions” goes an old managerial proverb, perhaps we all should always keep this in mind.

But we, as manager, are shining when things are complicated aren’t we?