By- Jacqueline P Mundkur

Customer Service professionals are often at the receiving end of demands to reduce  contact centre (manual )costs and thus  reduce the overall cost of service. With the increasing pervasiveness of  digital in daily life , CFOs exert pressure to drastically cut outlays for assisted service and convert customers to  DIY ( do it your self ) or Self Service modes . The trigger is increasingly larger outlays in building IT and  automation platforms and also digital discovery and immersion of internet and apps on the smartphone . So is there merit in going all the way ? Should we stop all manual customer service  ? What should be the smart balanced strategy for the today’s Customer Service Head ?

I reckon more than  just an assisted versus non assisted argument , the answer is to opt for a balanced approach which fits your  customer’s needs .

Servicing the Indian customer is challenging because his heterogeneity ..characterized by multiple languages ,traditions and cultures and layered with differences in  urban & rural mindsets . Through all this there is a significant preference for human interaction at the service touch points .  This is borne by the fact that inspite of millions spent , the e-commerce pie is just less than 5% share vis a vis brick and motor retail . Another consideration is non – uniformly developed Infrastructure ( internet connectivity and frequent power cuts )which plays spoiler to providing seamless digital accessibility  even with so called “ lite ‘ versions . Add to that  criteria like literacy ,” metro focus ” when developing  service architecture , age divide etc .But the most important of them

– contextual content is not as evolved or intuitive and these gaps in  digital journeys compel customers to call in sheer frustration .

So for the time being and at least at this juncture in India a dual execution policy looks to be the best bet . Simply put it means  having two parallel execution levels where you

• Continue with  Assisted mode coupled with an attempt to wean the right segments of customers off  manual modes of service and ,
• Develop & enhance the Non assisted mode to become a stand alone service delivery point. Strategies should include reward such customers who adopt Self service modes.( In the long term digital self service saves unit service cost and to encourage habit change so, parting with some of the saving makes good business sense)
• Execution Plan in the 1st scenario means that the Customer Service function continues with service thru  manual service set ups but in parallel initiates serious attempts using inbound interactions  to
• Target  and convert early adopters to digital self service using the captive audience who is engaged in a 1: 1 contact and ,
• Facilitate these adopters to act as influencers or evangelists thus catalyzing a  natural momentum and gradually weaning customers away from traditional service access points.  With a suitable hook which fills a need gap you can build a movement or create a domino effect where more people talk about the service and more people now want to try it . One of the simply played out examples has been the viral adoption of wats app ( inspite of it being a written medium needing both a smart phone , access to data and some navigating skills! ) relying on the power of word of mouth and local level evangelists overcoming even literacy and language hurdles .
• Executing the 2nd scenario involves the 360°  development of the Non assisted / mode to be intuitive and cover most service scenarios infact become a stand alone service touch point . Pure play e-commerce players have done this very well but when the evolution is from traditional services like banking , insurance or even telecom the transition to digital has been more laboured .The best service which any brand delivers is of course where there is ironically no need of service in the traditional sense we know it . So , whether its evaluation prior to buying , actual  buying , getting started , or usage and replenishment each of these journeys should reflect and fulfill the customer need relevant to the stage in his lifecycle. Those among us who have experienced e-commerce it is built as a complete medium with minimal need to really get connected to assisted service .

But now there are 2 important points that beg to be made at this juncture :

• Most of us are obsessed with our own creations and we would like customer adoption . For instance we build website and app at considerable costs and effort and expect that hordes of customers will embrace it immediately  and with unfettered enthusiasm ! We set targets and push non customer centric behaviour through various touch points . That’s is a cardinal sin to be avoided -give the customer a choice and avoid the temptation to  force fit not withstanding stake holder pressures 

To belabour the point , any  customer centric organization’s strategic focus should  be  to connect with the customer in his channel of choice – if he wants to use voice or writing even after on boarding him to the benefits of self help and its benefits but he does not bite  then just respect his choice  . If it means that he likes toggling between the self service app and some times dropping in an email – so be it ! In our obsession to meet internal KPIs lets not force the matter . Quite simply-  play  enabler and not  obstacle .

• Coming to the moot point . in a world moving to communication through devices  and not humans , shouldn’t we celebrate  the human contact of our customer  ? Have we ever evaluated it as a top line enabler ? Can we actually reap benefits from necessity of providing assisted service?

The  reality is that with every call and manual transaction has a price tag . So how about making each transaction pay for itself ? How can we transition the Contact centre from a  Cost centre to a Revenue centre ? Well , the beauty is that its easily doable with some smart nimble planning and execution and a cross functional will to do so. A quick run –down of the process is as follows

1. Create a cross functional project team drawn from Finance , Marketing , IT and Customer service
2. Create a campaign which can be pitched after every incoming call or email customised and addressing a customer need . Create in CRM the knowledge repository for this campaign .
3. Segment the base ( filter criteria like age , Social Economic back ground , usage of certain products , ownership of others etc and add qualitative aspects if those are available  ) into who are “ripe” for transition to the self service mode or to an key campaign which marketing would like to push for that month .
4. Find and communicate strongly the key value the adoption of the product or service will bring  .
5. To successfully target this segment at the assisted mode  , train the teams , create powerful change rewards and persuasive benefits  , track the adopters , reward the change agents .
6. Analyse the successes – what is need gap fulfilment which enables the transition / sale / adoption and use that knowledge  more strongly in the next phase .  And , Track the converts behaviour post change – are there  repeats , upswing in ticket size , type of usage etc
7. Involve and engage with your service provider ( in case you have an outsourced partner ) to ensure success .
8. Create the down stream momentum – a  systemic ecosystem and processes and policies so that the on-boarding is smooth and rewarding . Imagine a mobility customer being interested  in  paying his bill online and save a physical trip on the due date and he finds registration is very difficult and frustrating or too many steps . .
9. Analyse as we are wont to do – if the output  were lower than expectation and harness that learning into then next phase .
10. Build the P & L
    1. Compute all the costs . Measure the out put KPIs
    2. Monetize every migration from an assisted to a non assisted or sales post the pitch at the contact center
11. And then .. it will pleasantly surprise all ( including the customer service folks who knew it at some fuzzy level ) that relevant service and meaningful service counts where it matters most … to the bottom line !