i work customer service for a large telecommunications company, and they are actively trying to make it worse. the automated system makes it intentionally difficult to speak with a live agent, and when you do it's going to be an outsourcer. everything is forced self-service, they want you to use their app or digital options, so they remove agent's abilities to assist customers over the phone. metrics are judged primarily by sales numbers and average call time, not resolving customer issues, or customer satisfaction.
i will say i get highly discounted services, good pay and benefits, and work 100% from home. but it is very frustrating working customer service for a company that obviously does not care about providing good customer service. they view customer interactions as an opportunity to upsell or add services, that's about it.
100% witnessed this in the financial world too. Ai might help bridge that gap if the knowledge base has enough content, but quite often that is not the case. The people it hurts the most are the older generation, who have more time, are more technically illiterate and often have far more pressing concerns.
These businesses call it “cost to serve”. Cost to serve each customer, per year. Or “self-serve”, where all services are accessible from the app(s).
Controlling this cost, is one of the only ways in their mind to remaining profitable and allowing them to fuel their advertising funnel or acquire new customers with more ‘attractive’ rates & prices.
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yeah this is the kind of stuff i’m talking about, seems like all banking/phone services are taking this approach
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