Having travelled to Europe recently on business, I had to join the inevitable queue to pass through Customs.

Queuing is frustrating and disappointing, notably when a queue can’t be abandoned. Ironically, EU passport holders were skipping gleefully through the automated passport control simply by scanning their documents (remember those days?).

Two different approaches to the same problem, only one was managed far more effectively with technology, as opposed to a ‘rubber stamp’

Apply the same scenario to business and look at the results. In a contact centre or even in a live chat queue, the impact of queuing is the same: frustration. However the output is different, as in this instance the customer can abandon the queue and go elsewhere

Based on CX Trends research, 61% of punters having this type of bad experience might just consider switching allegiance. Ouch!

And before you challenge the analogy by highlighting the quality and approach of Border Control teams, even the most high-performing customer service only functions well with the right tools in place. 

Only 27% of customer service leaders believe that their organisation is making adequate investment in support. More concerning, decision makers do not have their finger on the pulse in this respect: 60% of companies think they are giving customers what they want, 68% of customers say that’s not the case. That’s a pretty big divide.

The solution to this pressing issue requires an organisation to commit to turning the traditional support model on its head.

Messaging and Conversational support channels are becoming an imperative for your customers, as this it's the quickest, most convenient and personalised way for them to reach out to you and for you to respond to their query

And let's be clear - this does not replace an agent.

AI and automated chat technology is designed to deflect frequently asked questions. Integrated 3rd party technologies can take this one step further by allowing customers to interrogate and answer their own questions far quicker than an agent can respond, if designed correctly.

That means when customers do need to talk to a real person, the technology can recognise this and pass them to an agent who, if they are working from a consolidated platform like Zendesk, can maintain a single view of the customer’s conversation in all channels

So to continue with my travel analogy, technology gives me a choice, even the  ability to change queues. However, my preference in this instance would undoubtedly to have breezed through the EU Passport channel rather than join the ever lengthening queue for manual processing

If you want to see Messaging in action, watch this short video and if you like what you see, come and talk to us about how we can turn this into a support option for your business.