alt="Cartoon illustration of live and digital service experiences."/>
There is now a way to transform the customer experience for an on-screen world. DCS (Digital Customer Service) changes interactions that used to occur on the phone into experiences that take place entirely on the customer's own screen.
With true digital transformation, companies are able to start interactions using whatever communication mode the customer chooses, then seamlessly transition from one mode to another with no additional effort. But because live conversations occur on screen instead of through a separate phone call, the experience is completely different.
Live and digital service experiences can no longer be disconnected.
Transforming to a DCS strategy creates three powerful enhancements:
1 Rich automated experiences that anticipate a customer's needs
2 Rich communication options easily accessible to customers from within the self-service journey they've already started online
3 Rich collaboration tools that immediately contextualize a customer's issue, guide them through the process – and in many cases, teach them how to do it themselves next time right on their own screen
Companies that are well along in this transformation are reporting that they are achieving three powerful outcomes:
Reduced cost to serve customers
A superior customer experience
Increased conversion rates
Digital Customer Service: Transforming Customer Experience for an On-Screen World is the roadmap for how you and your company can achieve these same goals – simultaneously.
WHAT'S HOLDING US BACK: THREE MYTHS
In this book, we'll challenge three commonly held myths about the digital transformation of customer service. These are the three primary obstacles that stand in the way of many leaders who are trying to push their organizations to rethink the way they serve customers in a digital world.
Based on the experiences of those companies that are now in the midst of this transformation, it is clear that these barriers are not as daunting – or even as true – as we in customer service had once believed.
MYTH #1: Digital Transformation of Customer Service Is All About Automation
This means removing the “human touch” and getting out of the business of interacting and talking (verbally, using spoken words!) with customers.
In fact, quite the opposite is true. Digital transformation of Customer Service is about using automation to empower your people to create an even more effective “human touch.”
REALITY: Digital transformation is not the end of voice communications with customers. It's about using automation to employ bots to do what bots do best, so that people can do what people do best – be human.
MYTH #2: Digital Transformation for Customer Service Means Companies Need to Be Active in Every Available Form of Communication
This means that companies must excel in chat, video chat, social, text/SMS, email, self-service, third-party apps, etc., on top of being great at phone communication.
What we've been learning is that the transformation isn't about adding more channels, it's about curating digital journeys. In today's world, many of the more complex customer service journeys require a combination of virtual and human interactions in order to reach full resolution. In a fully transformed customer service operation, the options needed for each customer's specific journey are deployed automatically once that customer has begun an online session.
REALITY: Digital transformation enables companies to learn from a customer's “digital body language” exactly what kind of digital experience this customer needs at this moment. Then the DCS platform offers each person a curated journey that seamlessly transitions them from one mode to another. (This wasn't possible, until now.)
MYTH #3: Making Customer Service Fully “Digital” Seems Like It Would Be Hard or Expensive
The companies that are going all-in on digital transformation are reporting it is easier and more efficient than they'd thought.
These companies are not giant brand names with giant budgets, nor are they digitally native organizations that built themselves with today's digital customers in mind. They are “traditional” companies that began their service operations decades ago using a primarily phone-based platform.
REALITY: Digital transformation is surprisingly not hard, and there's a rock-solid ROI business case to be made for why now is the time to take action.
When is it going to be our turn to transform? The answer is: Right now, if you choose.
WHY WE WROTE THIS BOOK
We've been studying the science of customer service for the past two decades, and what we've been learning and observing is VERY exciting:
Rick DeLisi has been researching the psychology of customer behavior and expectations in service for the past two decades, and is the co-author of the best-selling book The Effortless Experience.
Dan Michaeli has devoted his career to developing solutions that create world-class digital customer experiences for “traditional” non-digital-native organizations. He is the CEO of New York–based Glia, a leader in helping companies reinvent how they serve their customers.
We collaborated together to explore how technology and psychology can work in concert to help companies achieve true digital transformation of their customer experience.
If any part of your job includes responsibility over the interactions customers are having with your company every day – whether you are a C-suite executive, a leader in customer service, customer experience, marketing, sales, or digital operations – this book will be immediately helpful. We will arm you with new strategic ideas as well as practical “things you can do” to increase your confidence that you can achieve this transformation and reap the rewards it will bring to your organization.
Our greatest hope is that the ideas we'll explore together in the pages to follow will benefit you in a personal way – both in your increasingly digital career and in your increasingly digital life. We're proud to show you what we've been learning, and are grateful you're here to share it with.
—RD and DM
All illustrations and diagrams are original works by the Glia Creative team.
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