4 Principles of Delivering Superior Customer Service (Part 4A)

#Personalization and #Data

Our #customerservice journey continues as we dive a bit deeper into the possibilities (real and imagined) of using #technology to #personalize the customer experience. Our context here is of a service desk that is trying to help end users with their technology problems. Our end users could feel uncertain, disconnected, and possibly annoyed. They contact the service desk expecting a fast and friendly solution to their technology problem. We first want to examine what information (data) we might want to have when an end user contacts the service desk.

I feel like every process that uses technology should be first thought of as if we were not using technology and had all the time in the world. What would we hope to know when we are contacted by an end user? Let’s pretend they walked up to us, live and in person (#IRL). That’s a bit intimidating, especially if they are upset, but it’s a very useful thought experiment.

What do we get for information right away? We see them, and let’s assume we recognize them and know them well. We know their name, what their role is in the company (and department), who they report to, who reports to them (or work with), the applications/systems they use (or rely on the most), the hardware configuration on their desks (monitors, peripherals, etc.), their physical location when they work, issues they’ve had in the past and by the look on their face, their mood. Wow! That’s quite a bit of data just by looking at someone. However, admit it, for anyone that has worked at a service desk and experienced walkups from someone familiar, you probably immediately got 90%+ of that information right from your memories in less than a blink of an eye! … And oh boy, end users sure do like walk ups! This is why: We remember them, we understand them, and they have less to explain.

Logically, with that kind of powerful information, most issues can be easily fixed for the end user (or at least diagnosed for tier 2 or tier 3 help), and they can get on with their day. There’s also the opportunity to make them feel known and heard, which are very basic human needs. Sometimes you want to go... where everybody knows your name.

In essence, the data needed for #personalization is not much different than what our brains provide us when running into someone we know. Given the additional contextual #technology information about that person’s user persona within the company, a personalized #customerexperience can take place. So, let’s next explore what this might look like for tools that a service desk can use.