Normal is Sometimes Good
Author: Gary Barnett
Don Van Doren had a column in VON Magazine that was entitled Normal Human Contact. The basic premise of Mr. Van Doren’s piece was that in order to reach the next level of customer intimacy, companies need to figure out how to use technology to achieve “normal human contacts” – real-time, immediate and simple communications that emulate methods used in pre-technology days, such as knocking on someone’s office door to ask them a question.
In his column, Mr. Van Doren purported that contact centers would continue to push customers toward self-service, reserve agents for customer relationship building, and use presence technologies to employ the immediate support of subject matter experts, and others, throughout the organization.
I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Van Doren’s assertions. That said, it is also important to note that achieving this “normal human contact” would also require business process re-engineering – a re-designing of business processes that would need widespread organizational acceptance. For example, if certain calls were to be referred to a subject matter expert outside the contact center, the expert would have to receive the calls and be immediately available to respond to customers’ inquiries. To make this work, employees across the organization would need to be re-educated on how and where to route calls; and, in theory, a subject matter expert would have to be ready at any time, anyplace, on any day, to take calls from customers.
Because it is inherently human to resist change, business process re-engineering can take a lot of time, energy and money. But, when emerging technologies are deployed and new processes are accepted and sanctioned by employees, companies will be able to give their customers elevated experiences that are more immediate and personal. The company that is able to master more “normal human contact” will gain the clear-cut competitive advantage.
