A Human Touch in an Automated Industry
We’ve all been there before: calling into a support center expecting a live person to answer when an automated voice answers instead. After following the vocal prompts and being misunderstood by the machine and redirected elsewhere to where you just hang up the phone, you end up right where you started–frustrated.
According to a survey conducted by automated customer service provider Nuance Communications, the top pet peeve among millennials, Generation Xers and baby boomers is not being able to reach a real person via an automated system.
Despite the advantages that automated customer service provides such as improving customer loyalty and retention, bad experiences like these can taint these interactions and cause customers to cancel their service or cut ties with a meaningful relationship.
At Hytrol, we recognize that there are many great places to automate processes–we’re a material handling company, after all. But, we believe wholeheartedly that customer support teams should only utilize automation when it improves or promotes better quality interactions. Essentially, properly executed automation should always provide more value to the customer and to your team.
Our Customer Care team revolves around providing “simply connected service.” This allows our integration partners and customers to connect to our team as simply as possible through their preferred means of communication: phone, email or live chat. With our interpersonal communication channels, we’re prepared to serve our customers’ needs through each scenario while meeting or exceeding their expectations.
Ultimately, our goal as a customer support team is to cultivate relationships through personalized interactions and boost customer retention. To achieve that goal, a company’s customer support must maintain a positive, personalized experience while accommodating multiple channels of communication.
After learning that many of our integration partners and customers needed to speak to someone beyond our established hours, our team responded by transitioning to 24/7 availability across all communication channels. This initiative allows us to respond to inquiries more quickly day or night.
It’s important to recognize that even in our automated-driven industry, acting human is vastly different than being human. Find the right mix of human contact and automation to satisfy your customers’ preferences and meet their needs. This will set your team on the right track to creating customers for life as well as distinguishing your company from your competitors.
{{cta(‘00956c5f-d324-4bb2-9692-95d5711f1ddc’)}}
About the Author:
Tony Sartin is the Customer Care Manager at Hytrol. He has over 27 years of experience with the company and has been involved in many customer-centric initiatives throughout the years, including the Lean manufacturing transition and the development of Hytrol’s internal training program. Tony’s unique blend of customer-focused enthusiasm and extensive manufacturing knowledge is the driving force behind the team of support experts within Customer Care.