How to be Human First, a Professional Second
5 Quick Tips to Help you Make Price Irrelevant
1. Customer Service Feature Story
HUMANIZING OUR FUTURE
“In the digital revolution, excellent human interaction skills become a premium advantage.”
Technological innovations and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) have caused tremendous dislocations in today’s workplace. But the best customer service companies recognize the competitive opportunity of using technology to perform basic jobs, enabling employees to focus on what is most important: building relationships that result in higher customer loyalty, retention, lifetime value, and job satisfaction.
Unfortunately, the obsession with advancements in technology by many businesses has subconsciously sent the wrong message to employees: that success is about technological bells and whistles— websites, apps, social media, virtual tours, one click, iPads, kiosks, AI, and self-checkouts. As a result, employees have started using the technology as a crutch, thinking they themselves have less importance, less of a role in the overall customer experience. We need to reverse that assumption and reeducate employees that technology is just 10 percent of the customer experience and employees are 90 percent.
Facebook found out the hard way that implementing technology by itself is not the answer. In 2017 the social media giant tried having chatbots solely handle users’ requests in the Messenger app. Unfortunately, the bots failed to fulfill requests 70 percent of the time when deployed alone. Facebook eventually incorporated a combination of chatbots and human agents.
The Future of Customer Experience
Being able to build true sustainable relationships is the biggest competitive advantage in a world where automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are eliminating millions of jobs and disrupting entire industries, businesses, and careers. In the digital revolution, human interaction, compassion, empathy, and communication skills become a premium advantage.
With the increase in the digitization and automation of customer interactions, your employees must be focusing on building relationships with customers. The most memorable customer experiences are the ones where an emotional connection was made, where both customer and employee felt something.
Eivind Jonassen, CEO of Omnicus, a technology company serving contact centers, describes how businesses should evolve. “You should reinvent and transform your organization from both a digital and human perspective. Only by combining the strengths of digital interfaces and humans can your organization hope to achieve its highest customer service objectives and goals.”
Kristin Smaby underscores that approach in her article, “Being Human Is Good Business.” She says, “In an era when companies see online support as a way to shield themselves from costly interactions with their customers, it’s time to consider an entirely different approach: building human-centric customer service through great people and clever technology. So, get to know your customers. Humanize them. Humanize yourself.”
High Tech Meets High Touch
It’s time to consider an entirely different approach: building human-centric customer service through great people and clever technology. So, get to know your customers. Humanize them. Humanize yourself. The Relationship Economy is a critical necessity in a world of digital disruption as companies try to figure out the new reality of human and machine interactions in designing their customer experience.
One thing that needs to stay a priority in this evolution is keeping the customer at the center of all your decisions. “With the pace and stresses of most lives, people want to pass along their emotional burden to another human, one they trust understands their needs and will work to resolve an issue,” says Joshua Feast, the CEO of Cogito, an AI and behavioral analytics company.
We are all social creatures and innately need relationships. The businesses that work at knowing their client as a person, with a family, concerns, and dreams, will be the ones who dominate their industries. As Richard Shapiro notes in his book The Endangered Customer, “The human spirit can’t be separated from human transactions and interactions—nor should it be. Customers do not want their lives filled with endless robotic encounters. As automated transactions become faster, easier, and more reliable, making the human connection will become increasingly rare—and therefore increasingly more valuable.”
He adds, “Those companies that will continue to deliver personalized service will create and sustain relationships that will positively impact bottom-line revenues and profitability. Organizations can meet these new challenges by employing technology that can be used to enhance, not diminish, the relationship.”
*Related – How to Create an Emotional Connection in a Digital World
2. Airbnb Shows they are more than just About Making a Profit
The presidential inaugurations historically attract thousands of visitors who are willing to pay top dollar to stay in the nation’s capital. An opportunity most businesses would love to capitalize on especially considering the past year the hotel industry has suffered. Co-founder Brian Chesky announced on January 13th that Airbnb would cancel all short-term reservations in the greater Washington, DC area, not only refunding guests’ payments, but reimbursing lost reservation income to hosts, too. The move was a much different response than competing hotels and online travel sites like VRBO, which have generally remained open.
3. Short Video on Overcoming Virtual Fatigue
4. Quote of the Week
“In times of crisis, customers will often shift from buying what they want to only buying what they need. Have you made your experience something they need?”
5. The DiJulius Group Launches a Brand to Compete with Itself
In January, The DiJulius Group held its first CX Coach Camp, training passionate CX (Customer Experience) Coaches. These entrepreneurs are now licensed to train businesses on the exact same methodology that has been used with the best customer service companies from all over the world.
“Many people have asked me why we would train and license others to use our methodology and potentially take business away from ourselves,” says John DiJulius III, Chief Revolution Officer of The DiJulius Group. “Our purpose is to change the world by creating a customer service revolution. The DiJulius Group could not fulfill the growing demand here in the US and globally of small to medium size companies wanting to transform their business model to be customer experience focused. We needed an army of revolutionaries to help us achieve that. CX Coaching offers a simple yet effective turnkey model that businesses can use to see immediate results at an affordable rate. So in effect, we are disrupting ourselves.”
To learn about becoming a CX Coach or to register for our next CX Coach Camp April 26-29 contact claudia@
