At the Service Cloud Keynote during Dreamforce ’19, we welcomed a new age for service driven by the disparity between what customers want and the reality for most service organizations today. On one hand, according to the NewVoiceMedia, 86% of customers say a positive connection drives their loyalty. On the other hand, budgets and operational control prevent businesses from delivering one-to-one connections at scale.
This is the age of human-centric service, when closing cases quickly doesn’t come at the expense of a personal touch and technology enables seamless connections. Human-centric service is personal, intelligent, trusted, and inclusive service at scale. From your customers to your employees, these are the four pillars of human-centric service everyone should focus on.
1. Put your customer at the center
Customers want to be treated like people, not numbers (84% of customers say so). And, even though they may have several phone numbers, email addresses, and social media accounts, they expect companies to know exactly who they are.
Human-centric service means working toward a 360-degree view of every customer. By consolidating data across sales, marketing, commerce, service, and IT, previously disparate teams are able to work together to understand, collaborate, and engage customers consistently at every point in the journey. When customers reach out with a question, you know who they are and it shows, with full visibility into order history, preferences, and past service interactions for personalized service.
Customers also want easy and quick service anytime, anywhere, whether that’s late at night while scrolling through social media or on the go via chat or messenger. Bring personalized service directly to customers:
- Embed support in every digital property
- Engage customers on messaging apps (WhatsApp has 1.6 billion users, Facebook Messenger has 1.3 billion)
- Scale support with chatbots for quick requests (e.g., What’s my order status?)
2. Support and empower employees
Agents’ roles are changing, requiring them to take on higher-value strategic work. Seventy-one percent of agents believe automating routine tasks like memorizing escalation codes allows them to focus on higher-value work.
Artificial intelligence (AI) guides agents to resolutions with recommended next-best actions and new innovations in voice technology, like the just-announced integrated telephony solution which creates real-time call transcriptions so agents stay fully focused on listening to the customer — not scribbling notes. Get service teams up to speed on these new technologies and fine-tune emotional intelligence skills, too, with customized trainings that support their growth and success.
3. Serve across every touch point
Trust is nonnegotiable. Human-centric service eliminates uncertainty customers may have by giving them full visibility into their entire experience. In field service, this may involve concern over scheduling or knowing whether or not a mobile worker will show up. Build trust with customers with the kind of visibility and access they want:
- Give customers the ability to self-schedule appointments on their terms
- Provide live location tracking of mobile workers with maps technology
- Keep customers in the know with visibility into how long it will take a mobile worker to get to their location and who their mobile worker is
While on-site, give mobile workers access to user-centric mobile apps that help them build relationships and trust. Extensions in your field service solution support business processes, like running credit card payments, for a seamless, end-to-end experience.
4. Foster an inclusive culture
Human-centric service isn’t only about putting your customer at the center — it’s about putting your employees there too. Humans deliver service to humans. Create the necessary capacity, budget, and operational efficiencies that promote inclusivity with accessible tools.
For Southwest Airlines, accessibility for all employees was a must, with 10% of employees needing some level of accessibility in the contact center. Taking good care of employees helps them take good care of their customers. Visually impaired service representatives leverage accessible tools such as screen readers and keyboard shortcuts within the Service Cloud console to be efficient — and make all customers feel welcome, cared for, and appreciated.
Every business has what it takes to become human-centric. If you’re ready for your service organization to enter the age of human-centric service, watch the Service Cloud Keynote.
