蜜芽传媒

The quality of its customer service can make or break a company. But the kind of customer relations we now expect is vastly different from what we wanted mere half a century ago. In the 1960s, new organisations managing calls on behalf of businesses, known as answering services, relied on a single technology: the telephone. Now a firm needs to offer its customers multiple ways to contact it. But which ones should a company prioritise: the latest AI-enabled tech? Well-trained, empowered people in call centres? Or something else entirely? And how does all this impact the people who actually deliver customer service to us every day?
Iszi Lawrence discusses customer service in the time of chatbots and 24-hour e-commerce with Professor Premilla D鈥機ruz from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, whose work focuses on call centres, chatbot pioneer Asbjorn Folstad from Norway鈥檚 Sintef research organisation, Jo Causon who directs the Institute of Customer Service, and World Service listeners.