{"id":400898,"date":"2016-07-15T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T15:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/customerthink.com\/?p=400898"},"modified":"2016-07-15T08:00:02","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T15:00:02","slug":"man-vs-robot-the-battle-of-customer-service-turning-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/man-vs-robot-the-battle-of-customer-service-turning-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"Man vs. Robot: The Battle of Customer Service Turning Digital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\t\t\tRight now, the demographic that holds the most buying power is the millennial generation. These young buyers are obsessed with things like the sharing economy and green practices. One of the concepts millennials seem to embrace is that of self-service customer service. This leads to the great debate of who will win in the end: man or robot?<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\tA Life of Ease Through Automation<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t\t\tIn some ways, it seems like customer service is turning more robotic than anything else. When dialing customer service phone numbers, it’s extremely rare to have a human being answer the phone rather than an automated system. You can often handle all of your transactions and get your questions answered without ever being put on hold or speaking with a representative.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tOftentimes, you don’t even need to make a phone call. Once upon a time, you had to call airlines in order to make a reservation for a flight, but now you can do it online or through an app on your phone. Self-service machines are making it much easier to accomplish simple tasks.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThis makes things much easier on businesses as well. Overhead costs are dramatically reduced when they’re able to rely on a machine to handle mundane work.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tHumans Are Still Essential<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t\t\tHowever, this doesn’t mean that human beings are totally out of the picture. In fact, some would argue that humans are even more important than ever. One of the first rules of technology is, “If something can go wrong, it will.” When you run into a problem, there must be a backup plan, and your customers will want a human to take care of things.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tFor example, some customer service inquiries can’t be handled through automation. When a customer wants to lodge a complaint or feel reassured about a certain question, they don’t feel gratified unless they talk to someone who can answer back. Approximately 86 percent of consumers say they need to hear a satisfactory answer for their question in order for it to be a good experience. Robots simply can’t provide that.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMost of the time, customers like to see evidence of both self-service and human interactions. For example, self-service storage is a rising industry, because of both machine and human interactions. Consumers love the ability to both reserve and handle their storage without any help, but they like it when there’s someone watching the storage units and able to offer help if needed.<\/p>\n