With the retirement of the 'Baby Boomers', is face to face customer service dying?

Mark, I totally agree with Guy. I think that people from companies can build relationships with customers (another person) over the phone, through the web or via face-to-face. Even young folks like when a company makes them feel welcomed, important and appreciated. Richard Shapiro, The Center For Client Retention

hi: I have to agree with both Richard and Guy. The change is still somewhat unsettling and the end-game, so to speak, is still fogged in. It would be tragic if we lost the human; and I can only hope that others will feel the same. I have to believe that keeping the human will be proven to bring greater rewards, when defined by loyalty, retention, satisfaction, and revenue.

While there are more options to communicate with the customer, there is no replacement for face to face communication. Face to face service may decline some as other communications are used, but I firmly believe it will not die.

I don't see the correlation between baby boomers and face to face service, I think that this is a miscalculated assumption. Business continues to evolve and alternative options based on life style and social acceptability are the drivers. I might agree that organizational economics come into play, but not as much as we would like to believe.

Customers have a low tolerance level for poor service and service hasn't improved it's gotten worse. The biggest offenders are those organizations that make their customers push 7 or 8 buttons to get to a service person for a conversation, that might have been one of the worst service tools every designed, or at least, the one that's most abused.

I don't agree with Jim Watson's statement about quality service being able to be delivered more effectively using other channels. Nothing beats a face to face interaction, we all want to see how the person we are speaking to responds to our needs or queries, we can't do that with any other means, except for perhaps a video call, but even that is not nearly as good as face to face.

I do agree with Jim on relationship building, and there is a great deal of evidence to support the ability to build relationships through different channels. However, I still hold on to face to face as being the best way to build a relationship.

I don't believe that Gen Y has redefined intimacy, they just have different preferences for how they communicate, they are still no different than any other generation when it comes to relationships, they just might use some different approaches.

The bigger issue is just plain old lousy service, or what I call service indifference. In the last several years I've watched service decline across multiple industries. Based on my research, there needs to be a focus on employee engagement, this is the real missed opportunity.

Mark, great question!
Gen Y has redefined intimacy... high tech is high touch. In the near future avatars will handle much of the service work. 95% of callers who deal with an avatar are unaware they are dealing with a computer. See www.mycybertwin.com... send contact info off line and I will send you my new book, INVISIBLE when it is available in March... there is a chapter that addresses your question specifically. My take on the larger picture is this: human nature hasn't changed but the context in which we express our humanness has.

Customer service has, for many companies, become a cost center and has been subjected to significant change in an effort to reduce the cost of customer service. I am sure many of you recognize this problem if you have had the misfortune to contact some 'customer service services'. What looks like a cheap process to the service provider looks like a cost add to the customer who ends up spending huge amounts of time waiting to get connected, dealing with a person who is not empowered to solve a problem, repeating the process every time the problem needs to be 'fixed'.

Smart service providers will recognize the value of great customer service and included in the operation will be face to face opportunities albeit conducted, in many cases, by video.

I’m not sure I know the economics of customer service, as a general rule, to be able to point to specific numbers. We have all heard that the cost to acquire a new customer is 5 times the cost to keep the one you have. Frankly, every business is different so this number has no meaning to me any longer. However, if I can make a living by doing consulting for 15 clients and I have them now – my marketing costs are ZERO ostensibly. If I refuse to respond to their phone calls or emails and give them poor results with a poor attitude then I have to find 15 new clients who have never experienced or heard about my poor service and that cost could be astronomical!

Back to the question at hand. If you don’t want to talk to me, give me an automated email response that has little bearing on my inquiry; force me through a phone system that asks me questions (while telling me that my call is important to you); and finally hangs up on me then I will tell this to people I know in conversation. As a result, you have lost me as a customer and you have been essentially prevented from acquiring 10 new customers that heard my plight from me.
I realize that the population is increasing and, through mergers , the competition is decreasing. However, we all have choices and the ultimate vote is with our wallet or pocketbook. Number ONE on everyone’s agenda should be in taking care of the customers you have and there is a cost associated with it. Want to lower costs of customer care? Try one of the following:

1. Make you product better.
2. Make your product easier to use.
3. Hire an English teacher (assuming your location is English language oriented) to write your manuals.
4. Don’t radically change the interface or operation just so I have to upgrade. People associate their actions based on the last thing they used.
5. If you know you have a problem – own up to it immediately or I will stop buying from you.

Not everyone can create a product that is designed to be destroyed and still command an loyal following (that product is food).

Mark, there are a couple dynamics at play here:

The economics of customer service.

The context of relationship-building.

THE ECONOMICS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE are such that quality service can be delivered far more cost-effectively today through channels other than face-to-face. With the presence of web portals, and rich information about each customer, highly-personalized service can be delivered at a much lower cost, without sacrificing service quality or experience. This trend will only continue.

THE CONTEXT OF RELATIONSHIP BUILDING is different today. Customers of all ages are embracing technology as a way to transact and build relationships. People are far more accepting of technology as a primary engagement channel, because it's often easier and less time-consuming than the face-to-face alternatives. Even (very) senior citizens (my 92-year old father included) are getting used to conducting and building relationships through email!

The decline of face-to-face customer service won't occur because of the aging population; it will decline because there are more preferably, cost effective options for buyer and seller alike.

Jim Watson
http://bit.ly/rmOYIf