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I had a few thoughts on the whole omni-channel thing this week. Most organisations in social housing and councils that I work with, are trying (or struggling) hard in some cases to crack digital shift. That’s only sensible in a world where we are ever more digitally served and connected.
Tech is getting better particularly when it supports telephony. We have all had the cinema booking experience trying to get into the film at Stockport, with the confirmation back, “Did you say ‘Stratford’ ?”. We do battle with it don’t we?
I do believe we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater however, and ‘tackling omnichannel’ not be a mere tick box. There will always be folk who for all kinds of reasons want to pick up a phone & chat, or walk into an office to see someone who manages their home, patch or area in person. Indeed, today I was in two supermarkets today and in one used self-service tills and in another queued to choose a conventional checkout and had a short chat which brightened up both our afternoons.
For a resident to do something in person they most likely will not have a local office anymore in their village/estate area and maybe will need to travel 25 or more mins on public transport, to make that happen. It might be more important to them and of course it might be better for all than days or weeks of email ping-pong. Certainly if we promote different channels, telephone, email, WhatsApp, Twitter/X, Facebook etc, at least check them on a regular basis. Outside office ours too, as we all have issues 24/7, just not only when your offices are staffed!
Having omnichannel’s that are just a black hole and never answered are worse than not having one. Don’t advertise anything that’s hardly monitored.
Its not just residents and customers either. We are all either provider or customer in real life transactions and experiences and I see that with suppliers and clients I work with. We all communicate differently and like system interfaces, means needs to be taloired with what works best with how the other party would like to interact.
For example, one mutual supplier to a client I work with is very telephone orientated. My contact there who is extremely responsive most often asks to, “can we all jump on a call and talk it through”? The attitude is that primarily we change and improve culture, one conversation at a time. This works, although most likely what is discussed would also be exchanged in an email too, just to make sure everyone was on the same page.
In contrast, another supplier contact this week replied to a weeks old SMS query message to a work number, with a “sorry, no one uses the phone anymore”. I dodged a bullet there, I could’ve have wasted more time and left a voicemail there 😉
It was just one of those moments where for a change I was in the position of some of those residents at the end of our solutions and technology. The tech however good will always be somewhat second-rate to a well trained human, who might be relied on to provide more of an experience, than a transaction. You might be familiar with the phrase “people buy from people” that is often used to describe the importance of building relationships in sales. In other words, people are more likely to do business with someone they know, like, and trust.
I think even in 2024 this still holds water. Not losing the human touch, improves our relationships with customers, and the best tech supports that, rather than totally replaces it.
Related Post: What can erode the quality of communication with our customers?
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Flag Of Convenience - Life On The Telephone.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009
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