The HUMAN INTERFACE
EMOTION
Empathy
Passion
Creativity
The combination of self-service and human back-up is only successful as long as there is an integrated approach. It is important that help is available for the customer during the process. If the online process doesn't work, for whatever reason, most customers will terminate the process if their only help-option is to telephone a call centre. Consumers do not like repeating themselves. The best solution is to integrate your human back-up into your site via chat or video chat.
The human safety-net can also be useful to improve the online process in other ways. If the human chat sessions keep throwing up the same questions, this is useful input for optimizing the process.
Scarcity
The role played by people in the customer relationship has declined during the past decade. This trend seems likely to continue into the future. Human contact with customers will become scarcer. And scarce resources needed to be treated with care. Top restaurants think very carefully before they use white truffle in their recipes. The same care will be needed in future to decide where best to use the human factor within the customer relationship.