Personal service, convenience, reliable technology must work in harmony to achieve customer service excellence

Automated technology offers the opportunity for fast, convenient, and satisfying consumer transactions. But, if it’s not reliable and accurate, consumers quickly seek personal service to work out issues and receive guidance and reassurance.

That personal service needs to be truly personal. While artificial intelligence-powered chatbots are making strides, they’re still hit-and-miss. And the last thing a frustrated customer will tolerate is a chatbot that doesn’t understand the request or provide effective assistance. Online chat, while a step closer to personal touch, can still prove frustrating and cumbersome.

It takes real people having real conversations to achieve real solutions and satisfaction.

We’re a loan servicer that has experienced over three-plus decades the critical need to create a robust balance of personal service, convenience, and technology to satisfy clients, their customers, partners, and other stakeholders.

Bottom line, the technology had better work reliably and conveniently. And, when there’s a glitch, a live person must be accessible right away.

Without this harmony, businesses see trust, longevity and loyalty disappear.

Here are three important tips fueling Concord’s contact center success—and that can be applied to help achieve optimum customer service outcomes for businesses across the board:

1. Improve one, impact all. State-of-the-art contact center technology offers convenience and fast solutions for customers, in turn lowering the call volume to customer service reps. Consequently, reps can be much more easily and quickly reached when needed—providing the linchpin for customers seeking personal service without extended hold times.

2. Show sincerity and a can-do attitude. When called upon, either as a result of a mishap with automated technology or to address other issues, reps must be sincere, authentic, sympathetic, and focused on resolution. Canned explanations and scripted apologies won’t cut it. Even if the rep doesn’t have all the answers, there must be a commitment to find them, and follow through on the commitment.

3. Make personal contact options easy, direct, and reliable. When deploying new technology, whether in beta form or beyond, let customers know how they can quickly connect them with a rep. And let them know the truth—that it’s new, may have some glitches, and that you will work diligently to correct anything both systemically and with the impacted customer. Where appropriate, bring them into the process to help troubleshoot and provide feedback.

And remember: When ramping up technology, make sure everything supporting it is up to speed as well.