The evolution of customer service has taken us on a long journey -- from the retail store to the app store. While the evolution seems logical, companies have quickly responded to customer demands, becoming a culture of people helping people, to people helping themselves. Through systems, through processes, through people groups, each new touch point, or channel, or “thing”, was connected to the customer and simultaneously we entered into the early stages of the “Internet of things”.
Connectivity alone, today referred to as “IoT” will not be the answer to growing customer frustration. Currently we are fixing our issues with band-aids and make efforts to unify customer service. But what seemed like a very logical evolution of service became a HORRIBLE way to start our journey into the IoT. The IoT is there to connect -- to connect objects, people, even animals to one another without human-to-human interaction. But, it’s not enough.
Today’s focus on connectivity needs to evolve to the next step. While we do have refrigerators that talk to the store, and cars that talk to the service department and watches that talk to one other – we have now added even more complexity. It is an amazing time to have more information. Yet with all of this connectedness, where are we? What I believe is that the future of customer service will NOT be about the IoT; the future will be about the “Experience of Things”. The experiences between things will be the future of all this connectivity.
So as we start by joining channels together, always remember that customer frustration lives between the interaction moments with your brand. The way that consumers experience your service in all forms will be your differentiator. This will be the key to creating perfect experiences. It was a pleasure to speak to so many NICE customers at Interactions 2015 this week and I’m very excited about what lies ahead for us in the XoT and not just the IoT.
Barak Eilam
CEO, NICE Systems
#XoT