People like to talk to other people, especially when in need.

Although I will personally easy rather endure some 10-15 min of semi- masochistic try to self serve on a badly designed customer service portal, it's amazing how many consumers will still rather talk to a human while trying to solve a problem with the product/service (more than 60%). On the other hand, it seems like companies, in attempt to serve their customers on scale, have done almost a full circle in attempt to remove a human touch totally out of the equation. And from the bottom line point of view , it makes perfect sense-human customer service representatives are just too costly. But so is repairing a shaken brand promise of total devotion to your customer satisfaction (and that is what every brand on earth reflect in their mission statement, mo matter what they sell or offer).

Think endless Q & As you had to push through on a customer service section of a website, before you are given a representative e-mail address, phone number to call, or the absolute nightmare of “talking” to an automated attendant by pressing 1,2, 1,2 to be sorted out, and then waiting while listening to some generic uplifting instrumental elevator music for ten minutes on a landline sound quality. And then you finally got to talk to a student, who is fighting with a scripted Q&A, on the part-time job to support studies. Think airline company customer service in the beginning of pandemics.

All horrible customer experiences, what could be a possible moment of truth that would positively influence your brand equity (think about lost credit card and trying to reach a bank and facing one of the above described scenarios), are usually result of badly designed customer service flows, where good or great technology is inserted in wrong parts of the journey and/or doesn't do the full job. Why is that just not enough?

1.??????People like to talk to other people, when in need, NOT with the machines who are bad in pretending to be people.

Think of bots that have cute names and avatars, that only turned to be a glorified version of Q&A (apparently you can't escape Q&As). After two questions and realizing you're talking to a badly trained computer program, you got “escorted” to the inquiry form, wondering why you tried to actually have a conversation with a bot and lost 5 minutes of your time. By the way, not something that will happen if you use Oracle Digital assistant, who is so good at emulating real customer service, ?that it got regularly anthropomorphized by receiving thank you letters from customers, while working for Hermes UK: https://blogs.oracle.com/post/holly-the-chatbot-with-a-difference .

2.??????People like to talk to other people when in need, BUT what they like even more is their problem being solved EFFICIENTLY.

So, it looks like the evolution of customer service is partly a bitter experience of onboarding self-service in a wrong way, where most of the companies realized that you can't simply make a customer do all the heavy lifting of solving their issue, under the guises of automation and time saving for the company, but not for the customer. Self-service ?will work every time if you offer the most precious resource in return-TIME. To put it this way:

3.??????“I'll do it myself, if it takes me LESS TIME to solve it, than when talking/chatting with you”

So, how to be a best doctor in town , but also on scale?

Do what you do best, treating people, and let the rest be done by your personal assistant, right?

When there is to much work for your assistant, and you think of implementing IVR system and installing bot, ?think of scenarios they will handle and think of outcomes (btw. customer journeys are not dead just like customer centricity will not be less important only because it's old "worn-out" term in CX community).

That mapping will tell you if you are implementing a gatekeeper or helper, source of frustration or source of NPS boost. Then think of all costs that come with it, and how will it affect your top line.

And if answers are: gatekeeper and rather costly, then think simply of hiring one more assistant.

It might just do the job.