How smartphones and instant gratification have transformed customer expectations and created a new way forward for CX innovation.
Our modern culture has developed a need for speed that has quickly embedded itself across industries. An entirely new workforce has emerged. The work-on-demand “gig economy” has companies shifting away from full-time employees.
Employers don’t need to go through a long and arduous hiring process when they can simply find a suitable part-timer to complete a project or a few tasks on sites like Upwork and Fivrr. We expect everything we do to be faster and more convenient than ever before. It’s time for the customer service industry to catch up to the on-demand generation’s timetable.
Our timelines have shortened at home as well as work. We used to order new products online and be satisfied waiting 2-3 weeks for a free delivery. With the adoption of Amazon Prime, we wonder what’s taking so long after 2 days. We stream millions of songs to our phones instantly and binge-watch entire seasons of television in a few days. When the on-demand generation wants something, we want it now.
“We expect everything we do to be faster and more convenient than ever before. It’s time for the customer service industry to catch up to the on-demand generation’s timetable.”
Where We Stand
Apps like Uber and Lyft make getting a ride easy and convenient, but the app craze never caught on for CX like some expected. Millions use the Amazon and Facebook apps every day, but no one wants to download an app for things they rarely use. If an insurance customer is involved in an accident, they’re not going to search for their providers’ app and wait for it to download while standing next to their damaged car. They don’t download the app before an accident and don’t want to wait for a download after one. The only options left are to call the painfully slow customer service line or try navigating and submitting a claim on the insurance agency’s (hopefully mobile-responsive) website.
The on-demand generation wants the ease and speed apps provide, but refuse to be burdened by them. CX and service channels need a solution. Without a way to adapt, the customer service experience will only keep feeling slower and increasingly cumbersome to our on-demand society.
The Way Forward
Customer service technology used to be convenient. IVR made connecting to the right service agent faster and more efficient and allowed businesses to handle more callers than ever. The technology hasn’t kept up with the on-demand generation. There is a way forward, however: on-demand web-apps. All the functionality of native apps accessed through smartphone browsers instantly and without the need for any downloads.
“Web-Apps: All the functionality of native apps accessed through smartphone browsers instantly and without the need for any downloads.”
Web-apps access the full power of smartphones, leveraging geolocation, connection to CRMs and payment gateways, and using visual navigation to lower the average handle time of every customer service interaction to fractions of what IVR can manage. It might take an IVR minutes to read out every option a caller might have to choose from while a web-app user has chosen what they needed, entered all their information into a form, uploaded a picture of their accident to enhance their insurance claim, and submitted their claim with the help of robotic process automation (RPA) integrated with their insurance provider. Before an IVR user has navigated even a few options in their cumbersome menu system, a web-app user has successfully completed their entire insurance claim and moved on.
The Need For Speed
Customers want their issues resolved now, resolved simply, and resolved quickly. That’s the philosophy behind everything we build at Zappix. That’s why we’re leading the Visual IVR revolution.
CX is finally on-demand.
Built on instant web-app technology, Zappix visual platforms are committed to offering the on-demand convenience we all expect from modern companies.
Our smartphone society has continuously grown faster and more responsive over the past decade, and customer service has finally caught up. Technologies like Web-Apps, Visual IVR, and RPA are launching CX into the 21st century and speeding up the service journey. Customers can say goodbye to “press 1 for this,” and hello to compelling visual interactions leveraging the full power of the smartphones they carry with them every day.
Which side of the revolution will you be on?
