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: In today’s complex market, the proliferation of customer touch points has meant that it is actually getting harder — not easier — to consistently and profitably deliver the right kind of high-quality experience to all customers all the time.

Early in 2006, Forrester Research put forward this question to businesses everywhere: “In this competitive new world, how will leaders rise above the fray and differentiate their wares?” Considering that this question remains pertinent year after year, Forrester went on to conclude that business leaders will differentiate their products and services by creating compelling, valuable, usable customer experiences. This dilemma, faced by all businesses for decades has given rise to the new era in industry; the era of Transforming Customer Service.

Businesses that have gained ground with a differentiated product or service would do well to not rest on their laurels, but identify and implement an array of channels for their customers to interact with them, whether for maintenance or service, or simply feedback from the user perspective on how the product or service can be enhanced. A recent survey by management consultants Accenture (‘Service in the Customers’ Eyes: What Works, What Doesn’t and How it Contributes to High Performance, September 2005) brings up the alarming fact that nearly 50% of the respondents had changed service or product providers in the past year due to poor customer service.

It is an accepted fact that technology by itself means nothing; it is in the effective deployment of technology around the needs of a business that it brings its strategic relevance to today’s complex market. And technology, by itself, has been ineffective in addressing customer service issues. The most popular technological implementation for customer service — the automated voice response system — is commonly quoted as one of the major pain points for customers trying to reach their product or service provider.

Centuries of buyer-seller relationships have clearly shown that the customer is most satisfied with human interaction, and every other non-human contact is an inconvenience that is put up with. Businesses looking to cut costs in terms of headcount are also waking up to the fact that this is not a milestone to be achieved at the cost of customer satisfaction.