Take banking as an example. The queues are onerous, the processes manual and overworked, and ill-informed staff struggle to solve our problems. Endless back and forth explaining of things to different people and too many fruitless phone calls make for an almost traumatic experience.
Is there a seamless, time- and sanity-saving solution? Yes – removing the human element in favour of intuitive do-it-yourself systems is the way forward.
“In today’s increasingly digital age, the culprit for most companies with failing customer service is consistency. Their dated systems are simply unable to deliver consistent experiences across all channels.” – Brian Spencer.
Think about Domino’s and their disruptive (in the best way) online ordering system. The whole process is a breeze. Select your delivery method, place your order and customise your meal (triple cheese, anyone?). You can even track your pizza’s journey up until the moment it arrives. What a pleasure.
In South Africa, limited internet access has played a major factor in hindering the roll-out of such services, to our detriment. That, coupled with the fact that most people access the web from their phones, has limited the scope for self-service.
But things are changing. More and more people are jumping online. In 2012, internet penetration had reached 41% of our population. This year, that figure has grown by 11% and looks to be on its way up.
With extra access, the floodgates for self-service need to be flung open so that we can step up our service game and even the playing field with our international counterparts.
There’s endless room for potential in a multitude of sectors:
With this on-going digital shift, companies that want to stay afloat will have to ask some tough questions, like: "Are we delivering market-leading innovation and providing a better customer experience than our competitors?" and, "Are we agile enough to shift with evolving market and customer demand?”
This doesn’t mean everyone will have to dive head-first into the self-service and automation realms, but it’s only a matter of time before remaining stagnant will spell out the end.
The fairly recent introduction of Chatbots is a good example to look at. More ecommerce sites could do with these human-like bots. They’ll increase customer satisfaction (hello, after-hour assistance) and are far less intimidating than actual robots.
Global research company, Gartner, predicts that by 2020, 85% of customers will manage their relationships with companies without human interaction.
Before you think we’re promoting an all-robot society, hear Stefan Hajkowicz out. He says: “We're not entering into an era of job destruction but rather one of rapid transition. We need a more agile, flexible and nimble workforce able to cross professional and industry boundaries quickly and smoothly.”
In short, humans will still have a place in the changing workspace. We just have to adapt.
