Can a Computer Deliver Your Customer Service?

If you’re tempted to turn to technology for your customer service needs, think again. Computers can do a lot of things to improve your business, but meeting your customer service needs just isn’t one of them. Here’s why computers just can’t hack it when it comes to providing top notch customer service.

Computers Can’t Read your Customer’s Tone

A computer can’t tell if your customer is angry, happy, frustrated, or upset, and it can’t respond appropriately to these emotions in order to provide customer satisfaction. Your customers deserve and expect to have their feelings acknowledged and validated, and a computer can’t do either of these things.

Computers are Inflexible

Sure, you can program a computer to give a list of thousands of possible responses, but it can’t be programmed to resolve every issue. When a customer needs an answer or help with something beyond the scope of the computer’s programming, they’ll be out of luck. Computers can’t ‘think on their feet’ to come up with the best solutions for your customers’ needs, but humans can.

Computers are Unemotional

Computers may be able to deal with rational solutions, but what if the problem is not a rational one? Empathy is crucial to good customer service, and a computer can neither empathize nor can it see things from any other perspective than the one it’s programmed to see. Your customers need to be understood, and a computer just can’t do that.

Customers Prefer Dealing with a Human

Studies have shown that customers prefer live customer service with real humans to automated systems that require telling a computer what they want. Humans can provide completely personalized service based on the nature of the call, making it more likely that they’ll be happy with the results that they get.

Don’t be fooled into thinking automated customer service using a computer is as good as using live customer service agents. It’s just not the same, and your customers deserve better.