WhatвЂ™s more, putting unprepared staff on the phone with irate customers is expensive. Not surprisingly, customer satisfaction has been in steady decline across industries for years. Tales of poor service provoke outrage on social media and go viral despite companiesвЂ™ best efforts to contain them. While the self-service experience has improved dramatically in recent years, the live service interaction has barely changed in decades, creating a gap between customersвЂ™ expectations and actual experience. They still hire, onboard, develop, and manage their service reps in much the same way they always have. ItвЂ™s more like a factory of sadness.вЂќД¬ompounding the issue, as companies have focused on new self-service technologies, theyвЂ™ve underinvested in frontline service talent. As one service leader at a large retailer admitted to us, вЂњOur people are woefully ill-equipped to handle todayвЂ™s customers and their issues. And todayвЂ™s reps are struggling with these complex problems.

Corporate investment in self-service technologies has been enormously effective at removing low-complexity issues from the live service queue, and most companies weвЂ™ve studied report a steady reduction in such contacts over the past few years.ДЄll this creates a new challenge: As customers handle more of the simple issues themselves, frontline service reps get increasingly tough ones-the issues customers canвЂ™t solve on their own. The cost of a do-it-yourself transaction is measured in pennies, while the average cost of a live service interaction (phone, e-mail, or webchat) is more than $7 for a B2C company and more than $13 for a B2B company. Self-service offers companies a tantalizing opportunity to reduce spending, often drastically. Indeed, our data show an overwhelming preference for self-service: Across industries, fully 81% of all customers attempt to take care of matters themselves before reaching out to a live representative. When you checked in, did you use a self-service option-like the airlineвЂ™s website, app, or airport kiosk-to check your bags, choose your seat, and print out your boarding pass? Or did you instead wait in line at the airport to speak with a human being? If youвЂ™re like most people, you used the self-service option. That might mean evaluating reps on their ability to use good judgment rather than follow a script, and soliciting their ideas to improve the organization. Another key step is building a culture that values and rewards Controller behavior. Companies should also revamp their training practices, using new curricula and on-the-job coaching to help all types of reps learn to act more like Controllers. To expand their numbers, companies need a fresh approach to hiring-one that involves crafting job postings and screening applicants differently. But take-charge вЂњControllers,вЂќ who make up only 15% of all reps, actually do best at solving customersвЂ™ problems.

Supportive вЂњEmpathizersвЂќ constitute the largest group, and managers prefer them. Why are consumers increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of help they get from customer service departments? The authorsвЂ™ surveys and interviews with contact center personnel worldwide suggest that companies donвЂ™t hire the right people as frontline reps, nor do they equip them to handle the increasingly complex challenges that come with the job.Д®very rep can be classified as one of seven types, say the authors.

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