Getting out of the Customer Service Nightmare

With all the flight cancellations we witnessed this year, I bet that airlines have dealt with some pretty challenging customer service moments. In most cases, they'll also have lost customers to bad follow-ups, unnecessary mails or - God forbid - unfriendly agents. One of the key flaws in the system is that customer touchpoints have multiplied, with companies setting up more teams or more complex systems that do not interact (sufficiently). This leads to - you guessed it - a horrible experience with brand damage and lost revenue as a result. Quoting Warren Buffet: "it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it."

Although we pictured a very gloomy image, we want to bring a more positive message : it does not have to be this way. From an architectural point of view, you should start with process mapping. Doing so, you'll know where things go sideways. What you'll most likely bump into is a lack of insight into how your data is stored, where it is stored and how it is being used. Start with asking two important questions:

1. What does the data strategy look like?
2. Do you have an existing blueprint of the data architecture?

If you answer both questions negatively, please do something about it as it profoundly affects your ability to deliver acceptable levels of customer service quality. As a data partner, we suggest to bring your efforts together in conversational intelligent virtual agents (instead of old-school interactive voice response menus). Every touchpoint, be it voice, chat or mail should be documented (thus transcribed in the case of voice) and linked to a single account record. Virtual agents should be trained sufficiently to trade of their use to "filter out" the repetitive questions against the likely nuisance customers experience when having to go through an extra layer of "gatekeepers." With existing cloud technology and AI tools (offered by vendors like AWS), it is not too difficult to:

• Create a 360° view of the customer
• Keep all customer records together
• Direct human agents to the correct record
• Improve customer insights through every interaction

If you're at a crossroads where you need to choose between investing money in extra human agents or buying another product that promises to increase your ability to improve your customer service: give us a call. Our promise is twofold: (1) we don't charge to share our expert opinion, (2) we don't charge if we can't solve the issue. Looking forward hearing from you.