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Core Communications
By
Martin
Tracey
On the one side are some great new technologies and organizations that ap-
pear to believe their solutions and applications are simple and intuitive enough
for companies to engage, deploy and use them with access mainly to self-
service support tools. The other side of the battle includes organizations that still
believe most business-level technologies that effect daily operations require ac-
cess to real-time expertise and support from design through on-going support.
Often in discussion of this contrast
in support approaches there is a de-
fault to this divide being an age gap
that fuels the way individuals want to
consume and have these services sup-
ported. This is a convenient answer
but holds what appears to be many
contradictions.
Many people say that an older gen-
eration wants the white glove treatment
and access to classic communications
channels such as a phone call. If you
work in technology and many other ver-
ticals you know as a general statement
this may hold true, but the truth is these
folks also want good access to informa-
tion and self-service applications such
as video, while still having access to
real-time expertise and support when
issues or timing are critical. Let’s not
forget this is the generation of do-it-
yourselfers; everything was earned.
Meanwhile, the younger generation
is seen to have a veracious appetite for
information in a self-service form, from
documentation to video tutorials. Al-
though this may hold true, they are often
accused of being the instant gratification
generation, which would then lend itself
to the idea that when they need exper-
tise or support, they want it right away
and in the channel they prefer most.
Although few organizations seem
to have mastered the perfect cus-
tomer experience mix to this point,
each generation gives us the answers
to unlocking this puzzle. The perfect
mix is to provide support for your
customers in all the forms that best
suit their needs. Improve the avail-
ability of information and tutorials for
your users that want to take a crack
at self-serving issues but be available
in real-time with multiple channels of
communications open to your custom-
ers when they need it.
The end result will not only be
improvements in your customers’
experiences, it will also improve the
performance of your sales and sup-
port organizations by moving to more
proactive relationships.
o
Martin Tracey is CEO of LANtelligence.
Does the Self-Service
Model Have a Place in
Unified Communications?
T
here is a battle going on about the sales
process and customer service.
Customer Service Channel Preference by Generation
Channel
Silent Generation Baby Boomers Gen X
Gen Y
Phone
55.6%
59.6%
46.3%
29.4%
Electronic messaging
6.6%
22.5%
44.1%
42.35
Social media
0.7%
3.5%
20.7%
36.4%
Smartphone app
0.3%
3%
17.2%
31.9%
Paper mail
17.2%
13.4%
9.65
5.9%
Don’t know
38%
33.8%
33.4%
33.1%
Source: Dimension Data, Nov. 2016
Channel
Vision
|
July - August, 2017
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