In an attempt to lower costs, many businesses have turned to automation. It is rare to call a business and get a live operator. Generally, you must navigate a phone tree. The phone companies and cable companies direct you to their websites to get more information or so that you can learn to deal with whatever the problem is on your own.
Sadly, we all know that machines do not understand. Their computerized logic is not always in tune with human logic, and more importantly, machines do not have sympathy or empathy. Most customers not only want to get a problem resolved, they want to be listened to and understood.
In the airline industry, the trend has been toward installing check-in kiosks and getting rid of agents. When they work, kiosks can really expedite your check-in. But when you have a problem, you must wait for an agent. On the blog Consumer Traveler, a post entitled “Delta: We need more humans in customer service” details the problem:
In short, if there is any kind of a complicated itinerary involved or a bad travel day with weather or a lot of other delays, the kiosks get overwhelmed pretty fast.
Since airlines have cut airport staff because they expected the machines to take over much of their jobs, overwhelmed kiosks turn into overwhelmed customer service agents and airport chaos develops pretty fast.
…
But now it appears as if Delta at least is realizing that the savings in personnel costs may be costing them more in the long run. How else to explain the report in a newsletter for retail travel agents this morning that the airline is adding 700 airport customer service employees, and 300 additional reservations agents, primarily to deal with flight disruptions.
In the end, you can’t make a machine understand your issue. You need to speak to a person who can translate your needs into something resembling a solution.
Automation has its place, but should not remove the human element altogether. People are not machines and generally prefer dealing with other people.
Tags: human customer service, pitfalls of automated customer service