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Infographic: Are Aussies indicative of the future of customer service?

March 25, 2012

Australian customers overwhelmingly preferred self-service to human interaction, according to a recent study by the firm Galaxy Omnibus in Australia. In fact, 76 percent of those interviews said they'd rather be empowered to solve their own problems. Click here to see the infographic.

What was more interesting was the comparison between Baby Boomers and Generation Y. Of the Baby Boomers, 73 percent found self-service useful while 88 percent of Generation Y did so. So what does that mean for future generations like the Millennials?

While the Aussies are well known to be an independent lot, they are not alone in this trend. A recent Harvard Business Review article entitled "Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers" also found this trend. So, if customers are saying they prefer self-service, why are businesses so afraid of fully embracing this?

We frequently meet customers who say, "Whatever you do, please don't call this a kiosk. It's a dirty word inside the organization."

We also meet people who say "Oh we aren't interested in self-service because we want to focus on giving excellent customer service."

When I first entered the self-service space it took me a while to understand why people had a visceral reaction to the word, "kiosk" or were so afraid of self-service. However, as I started to learn more. I realized a simple truth. There have been some pretty awful deployments of kiosk out there. These first-generation kiosks were more like betas. Most people didn't understand that the kiosk had to be an integrated part of the customer experience, the application design has to be simple and intuitive, that the units had to integrate seamlessly to other systems and most importantly they had to actually work.

Over time, the industry and customers have grown savvier. If you think about how successful the kiosks in airports have been, then you'll see part of the evolution. I personally cannot imagine going back to standing in line for the benefit of talking to a person. I'd much rather swipe my card, change my seat, print my boarding pass and be gone than have someone ask me how my day is.

So what does this mean for the new paradigm of customer experience and customer service? Well first you have to start with what the customer wants rather thinking if you just provide a better class of traditional service then you will "delight " them. The new reality is that we need to provide multiple channels so customers can be served when they want, how they want. Moreover, these channels need to be seamlessly integrated so that the user can 'hop' between them.

As future generations become more and more wired and technology continues to evolve, this trend will only grow. That means that retailers, health care providers and governments need to reassess what their definition of good customer service is.