Communication comes in many different forms. From the spoken language to officially recognised sign language for the hearing impaired and even an unofficial nod and a wink to a friend, communication is the bedrock of our society. It is woven into our fabric as a species and serves so many purposes that it would be impossible to cover them all in one paper. So, in uncovering human communication, we don’t need to dive straight into the complexities of nuances, different languages or anything too complicated. It serves our needs to start with the basics and by that, what I mean is that we shouldn’t forget that cave paintings were a form of communication. They told stories, they warned of danger, celebrated great victories and recorded history. This was the birth of culture. The start of storytelling.
Of course, as time progressed, we went through the ages of stone, bronze and iron. With each passage of time, we marked another milestone on the road to where we are today. During that period, there were continuous improvements in tool building, horticulture and agriculture among other things and as everybody knows, that kind of collaboration cannot take place without communication. We know from other periods within history that communication has led to great achievements but sadly, most probably through a lack of communication, has also led to times of war as well. Of course, more often than not, the mood has predominantly been one of peace, prosperity and a positive outlook on the future.
The ability to communicate in the right way has elevated people to positions that perhaps even they didn’t think possible. Don’t think for a second that oration is not communication as it has resulted in some of the greatest, most impassioned, iconic and most inspirational speeches of all time. Who could forget the immortal lines of American Civil Rights Leader, Martin Luther King when he said, “I have a dream”? Likewise, Winston Churchill’s, “We will fight them on the beaches and in the streets…, as well as John F Kennedy’s, “We choose to go to the moon and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard”? Leaving the powerful messages behind, these speeches resonated with people because they were written and delivered as if they were spoken individually to each individual listener. This is often one of the things that is forgotten by people trying to communicate. If you take anything from this, at least remember that you are only ever talking to one person. No matter how mass the communication, if you want that to hit home and resonate with the reader / listener, it must be written or be spoken as if you are communicating directly to them. There are very few (if ever) mass readings of an office memo. So, treat every audience, regardless of size as one person.
You may have noticed by now that all of the communication I’m talking about is specifically human to human. Regardless of the medium or the delivery method, this was all about humans connecting and communicating with one another. There was no human to computer interaction, no AI communication trying to figure out what we wanted and no bots trying to take care of customer service – don’t even get me started.
Now, we can’t start to answer the question of how to communicate in a human way in a digital world if we don’t know what the problem is to begin with. Digitisation was coming, we knew that. It was a real thing and in truth a kind of unstoppable tidal wave. It all happened so fast. But we were willing participants. We wanted the car phone, plus the mobile along with all the latest accessories including all the bells and whistles that came with it. We were riding on a wave of techno-euphoria that had endless possibilities with no possible downside. This was short-sighted. What we didn’t realise in all of our enthusiasm, is that we were part of the problem, not the solution. We were allowing and enabling the disconnect between human-to-human connection, which now leaves us needing to find a solution, a way back.
You’ll recognise the three real life examples I’m going to give you of how the disconnect manifested itself.
The first was generally used by cinemas or train companies for ticket bookings using voice recognition technology over the telephone. Although it has improved in recent years, when it started, the scenario usually went something like this: The call is answered and an automated ticketing agent would ask “Where would you like to travel to today?” The customer would then respond with the name of the train stations they wanted to go to. Let’s say, just by way of an example that the customer wanted to travel to Amsterdam. They would say “Amsterdam” into the mouthpiece. What was then supposed to happen was that the automated voice would confirm the destination by saying something like, “I understand you want to travel to Amsterdam. If this is correct, please say Yes.” Now, please note, that is what was supposed to happen. Too often though, the technology was not up to the task and would offer increasingly inaccurate options from Alkmaar to Antwerp leaving customers infuriated. The situation was so ridiculous that this type of device became a running joke and was often parodied on TV and other mainstream media. This is no way to treat paying customers. Not only is it bad customer service but it is also bad for business.
Luckily, as customer expectations are skyrocketing, the state of voice technology and speech recognition has improved dramatically and definitely lives up to customer demands. Customer centric companies such as Coolblue, Eneco and Just Eat Takeaway, have replaced their old fashioned IVR menus with a voice assistant. The friendly, digital host welcomes customers without any waiting time, verifies them through a connection with the CRM system and asks the open question “How may I help you?” Based upon the customer’s intent - which due to advanced AI is recognised with an accuracy of over 92% - the voice assistant decides to either help the customer itself (with simple, repetitive tasks such as “where is my package?”) or route it to the right customer care representative. The latter receives all gathered information on who is calling and why and can thus approach the conversation in an even more personal and efficient way. It proves to be a scalable as well as a customer friendly solution that delivers business insights on a granular level as to why customers are calling. After all, a customer contacting your customer service is delivering feedback which can be of great value to your organization.
Another example of how not to communicate in a human way in a digital world is the way that delivery companies treat us. Having goods delivered directly to our doorstep has been a growing trend for the last few years and the pandemic has catapulted it to a whole new level of business. There is virtually nothing that you can’t have delivered now, particularly with Amazon and those who took the opportunity to make their business a digital store when they saw the lockdowns coming. However, in terms of a missed opportunity, can anyone tell me why the emails that communicate with customers about their delivery are so impersonal? It starts like this, “Dear Customer, we have received your order and are currently processing it. The Customer Service Team.” “Dear Customer, your order has been processed and sent to the warehouse. The Customer Service Team.” “Dear Customer, your order has left the warehouse. You will receive a separate email with a tracking number. The Customer Service Team.” I could go on but I won’t, I think the point has been made now. You can see there has been no engagement, no upselling, no cross selling and the chance to make this customer feel valued has been lost. This is solely down to the impersonal nature of the communication. Can you imagine if a shop assistant treated you this way in a physical store? You’d never go back. Not only is the communication ineffective in terms of what it could have been, by not interacting with the consumer, you are harming the chances of repeat business as they may prefer to go somewhere they feel their business is respected.
This last example, most people will be familiar with. If you’ve phoned your bank recently, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Press 1 for balance statements, Press 2 for payments... and so on, all while being patronized with the phrase, “your call is important to us”. I suggest that if it was important, they’d answer it. We all understand that it is done to handle call volumes but the whole process is long-winded and frustrating, especially when the menu doesn’t have an option that addresses the reason for your call.
The frustration is shared by many people and prompted Which, the consumer protection group, to launch an investigation. (https://conversation.which.co.uk/money/bank-automated-call-helplines-telephone-speak-human-ivr/)
Among their findings were recommendations such as,
“Customers should be able to access services quickly and easily and banks should do more to ensure that this is achieved, for example by providing the option to speak to an adviser at the beginning of the call, or by making it possible to bypass the IVR at any point. And there should be no attempts to sell products to customers that they don’t want or need.”
The responses to the Which article were telling. Which asked them,
“Do you find it a struggle to speak to a human being when calling your bank? Should banks be simplifying their menus in order to make them more accessible or do you find them easy enough to navigate?”
Here is what some people had to say,
“As soon as the robot has started its sentence, I press # repeatedly until I get told that I have exceeded the number of attempts at entering my card number and that I will be put through to one of the humans, which is what I was looking for in the first place.”
“I am really getting nostalgic for the days of branch banking.”
“It’s just another quality issue. Banks’ automated systems are (generally speaking) as bad as the other elements of their customer service.”
And, as we’re talking about banks, it probably makes sense to look at the financial sector as a whole. The financial sector is a part of the economy made up of firms and institutions that provide financial services to commercial and retail customers. This sector involves a broad range of industries including banks, investment companies, insurance companies, and real estate firms. More and more parties are added to this sector every year. Most recently, big-tech giants like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon have entered the financial services market. Initially, their involvement only extended as far as payments but their influence is growing and areas they are moving into include loans, insurance, savings and investment products.
In the Netherlands, the type of service provided by big-tech is currently limited to payments. For example, ApplePay has entered into a partnership with various Dutch banks. At the same time, the collaboration between Deutsche Bank and Google shows that the tech giants are also entering the financial sector in other areas. For example, this collaboration allows Google to devise financial services for Europeans. Google will not only become a supplier with the provision of cloud services but will actively work on so-called 'next generation' financial products for Deutsche Bank customers. Due to the large customer bases, powerful brands, and large financial reserves, it is to be expected that big-techs will also become financial services that can quickly conquer a place. This means that the banking sector and other financial service providers are increasingly facing very stiff competition. But, how will the big-tech firms manage customer service in the financial sector and only time will tell if they are able to do it in a more human way.
One company leading the fightback towards more traditional customer service values is Knab, a valued partner of Tracebuzz.
As a bit of a background, the collaboration with Tracebuzz (Parley) came about with the intention of creating a strategic use of messaging to promote more effective customer service. For anyone who doesn’t already know, Knab is a fairly young and modern bank. They have a solid base of customers with more that 175,000 to date and counting. On top of this, they are already well known within the Netherlands. Last year, Knab chose to use messaging by Tracebuzz (Parley). What does this bring them? The system reduces the need for phone calls, reduces the need for emails and increases customer satisfaction because of the highly interactive app that actually aids human interaction.
To get more in depth, Knab was founded in 2012 with the single most important principle, that being that ‘Clients are considered as the Number 1 priority’. It’s a perfectly understandable position to take. Without clients, the bank doesn’t exist, so the question becomes, “how do we keep these customers happy?” High customer satisfaction must be their most important goal. The bank’s customer base is focussed on private individuals, self-employed persons, and small entrepreneurs. Despite the bank being completely online, they think it is important to have a personal touch. They give their customers a good insight into their financial situation and eliminate complexity and frustration. They do this through a combination of hiring the best people and implementing the smartest techniques.
Helping more customers with the same team size
Not so long ago we all had to take care of our banking affairs through a bank branch. That soon changed and we were also able to arrange our banking affairs by phone and email. At Knab, this can all be done via the app. This allows you to make a request for new products, make changes to your account and manage your finances but the twist is that you can also use the same app to reach customer service. Knab wanted to work more efficiently and help more customers with the same team size. This resulted in the strategic choice to use messaging.
Where concept meets reality
Customers can easily contact the bank via the messenger in the Knab app. This results in fewer emails and phone calls as everything is being taken care of through the one resource. This makes customer service three times more effective. With messaging, a service desk employee can help more customers at the same time, but also better and much faster. A customer contacts the bank via the app and they are automatically logged in. The employee immediately sees all the information of a customer and therefore knows exactly who he has in front of him. This way, a customer will receive the correct answer to a substantive question more quickly. What’s more, the conversation does not have to be constantly active. The customer can click away from the conversation and receive a notification as soon as the employee has responded.
Source: https://tracebuzz.com/case-study-knab
So, has Tracebuzz cracked the code of how to communicate in a human way in a digital world? Let’s take a look at their credentials.
Tracebuzz has been in the field since 2009 and had noticed how communication trends had changed. The phone and email were the traditional customer contact channels but now, they were no longer the primary methods of communication. People had switched to Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp during that period. Due to the user-friendliness and range, the adoption of these "messaging channels" is very high.
Everybody knows you need to be where your customers are and Tracebuzz figured out pretty quickly that consumers prefer to ask a question briefly and concisely via messaging and expect to receive an answer quickly. This gave Tracebuzz the impetus to form a strong focus on conversations with the customer and that’s how they became the specialized customer contact solution for social media and messaging.
What Tracebuzz does is offer businesses a better way to run their customer contact solutions, which involves using the preferred channels of your customer, including social media, chat and messaging. What’s more, they connect your business with all of the social media channels and can even create custom integrations on request.
This allows businesses to communicate briefly and concisely with their customers in real time, exactly as they are used to and that leads to an increase in customer satisfaction. This also allows companies to put an end to long waiting or lead times and the associated high costs that go with that.
The benefits of live chat cannot be underestimated. For example, an agent can serve multiple customers at the same time or can directly add a document to the conversation. Of course, the advantages of a live agent are that they keep the human connection at the heart of the conversation ensuring that customer service standards remain high and that keeps customer satisfaction even higher.
We mustn’t forget that messaging is always a viable and available tool in the customer service arena. Agents can manage chat sessions and know they will never be abandoned, not even when the browser or app is closed. Both agent and customer will see the full conversation history.
So, the human touch has not been lost and it seems that Tracebuzz has found the answer. One can only wonder what the next evolution of technology will bring for keeping us connected in a human way.
For more information on Tracebuzz or what it can do for your business, contact christian.sinke@Tracebuzz.com
