Customer Service as a profession: The CX Agent is the expert of the future...

This week is Institute of Customer Service 'National Customer Service Week' 2023. Organisations across the UK are promoting the importance of customer service, what initiatives they are doing, as well as showcasing their people.

Today's theme is Customer Service as a Profession and it got me thinking about working in customer service and why most people don't see it as a start point in their career.

Why is it that most people don’t see their career starting out in a contact centre, or more generally in customer service? Helping customers is such an essential task for every company - from the most famous luxury brand to a local retailer. How come the people with the expertise to fix problems aren’t envied by their peers?

Apple is a good example of a company where this does happen. Take a look around an Apple Store the next time you are near one. The Genius Bar is where the customer support problems are fixed. The people who fix complex problems are called the Geniuses. Talk to the people selling you a new phone and they will often confess ‘one day I want to be a Genius.’

This attitude is spreading. The reality is that customer service processes are changing.

Think about the last time you had a problem with a product. Did you go online to find a customer support phone number? Or did you Google a question on your phone? Or ask Alexa for advice? Or opened the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot available on the app?

These days, by the time a customer gets through to a human customer service agent and asks a question it is usually because Google and AI can’t help them. They need an expert on the case. If they really are experts then why don’t we start calling them customer service experts?

There is also a different type of relationship between customers and their favourite brands today. The traditional role of customer service was to answer questions or manage complaints. The customer had purchased a product and now needed help.

This doesn’t reflect the way that customers interact with brands today. Look online and you can see customers of Sainsbury’s talking lasagne and wine with their supermarket of choice. Just had a great run in your Nike shoes? Why not tag the company on a photo of your tired feet? Netflix posts behind the scenes footage on TikTok, drawing viewers into an exclusive club. Nine million people actively follow photos of new Land Rover vehicles. Every question you might ever have about a Dell computer is probably on their YouTube channel.

Customers now engage with brands long before they are an actual customer. They might engage throughout a purchase and they will stay in touch long after a purchase. Those Nike customers might engage even more regularly if they are in the global Nike Plus Running Club.?

So the questions that customer service experts need to deal with are getting more complex as self-service improves and customer interaction is more focused on building and maintaining a relationship - not just answering a question about how to switch on a new product.

This is creating a wave of change throughout customer service that is making it a far more attractive industry - a place where you really can build a career. There are many reasons for this, but consider these as the most immediate and compelling:

• Genuinely exciting career options. A modern contact centre is a business hub bringing together talent from many disciplines. Once you are inserted into this environment then there is no reason why you can’t explore a career in one of a number or areas. Contact centres today need cloud technology, information security, regulatory compliance, automation and bots, multilingual service, biometric analysis, artificial intelligence combined with data analytics - plus good old sales and marketing. You can go anywhere inside this environment.
• There are endless new roles being created. Customer service technology is at the cutting edge of experimentation. If you want to engage with AI coaching, or designing augmented reality shops, or analysing consumer data so you can predict their behaviour then this is the career for you. AI systems will soon need ethics guidance in addition to coaching - none of these jobs existed until recently.
• Tech is already supporting the experts. The team in the contact centre is already being supported by AI to reduce boring and repetitive tasks. There is no need to note what a customer call was about when the AI can do it automatically. Your AI coach can plan training sessions for you based on skills you need to practice.
• Tech is already inside the customer journey. Many companies talk about their investment in new technology, but few have partnered with Microsoft to build their own Generative AI system based on ChatGPT - all to improve the customer experience by creating highly responsive chatbots.
• Future Skills. Whatever career journey you take, it is highly likely that direct experience of working with customers will be valuable in your future. This will be immediately obvious for roles in sales or marketing, but even other areas of the business - such as technology - can be enhanced by including team members that know exactly how customers behave. This is valuable knowledge and career experience.

How should the industry adapt to this new future of the expert?

I believe we have already started. Many of the innovations that support both experts and customers are already being deployed. AI and other technologies are being constantly evaluated to see how they can improve productivity, efficiency, and employee engagement.

I believe there is a strong opportunity to build a more diverse and inclusive industry. By embracing work-from-home and flexible opportunities we are creating opportunities for the experts to contribute their skills without the need for traditional full-time employment commitments.

This means that many people who traditionally would never have considered work in customer service now find it possible - and even desirable. Parents with kids or caring responsibilities for other adults. Retired people who have a lifetime of knowledge, but would never want to work 40-hours a week in an office. People with health conditions or disabilities that make it difficult to commute or work traditional full-time shifts.

By embracing flexibility in customer service processes we are also embracing diversity. By embracing diversity we are also able to embrace people who may want to work supporting a particular brand because they are a fan. Games companies can seek out gamers to work on their support team. Fashion brands can seek out Instagram mini-influencers to support their customers.

An evolution is taking place. Not only is customer service becoming a more flexible and welcoming type of job, but it is becoming an exciting place to build a career - whether you want to aim for a future job in technology, sales,? or the boardroom.

The agent of the future really is the expert of the future.

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