Maoz: The global pandemic has exaggerated all that is wrong with a ‘contact’ strategy. The pandemic is also the best opportunity in over a decade to restart, re-energize, and re-imagine customer service and field service. There may never be a better time to press for an ‘engagement-first, digital second’ strategy.
The accepted wisdom is that the enterprise has to be ‘digital first.’ Think about that for a moment: do you want to lead with technology, or lead with process? What is it that they teach in Engineering 101: Form follows function? First, imagine the right way to engage with your customers – safely, with trust, and in their immediate and overall context.
The article examines that there is a need for businesses to look at their engagement strategy prior to deciding on digitization with a view to ensuring that the customer is met with and treated with in the manner that is inimical to them. This counters a lot of the thinking that espouses the total automization of the customer service platforms and points to a human first automated matrix that may be inversed based on the particularities of the person or the institution that is being dealt with. Such a strategy cannot be accommodated by a blanket all philosophy nor a what’s good for the organization first philosophy on the part of the decision makers according to the direction that CEO Moaz is taking. Moaz points to this approach as being motivated by his “CEC MQ”
He points that it’s a derivative of what was referenced as the Gardner Magic Quadrants whereby, points of interaction or more exactly “contact” are observed. Customer feedback is not just solicited but needed so that companies can modify their processes to be more effective in relating to the customers.
The article is all in all an interesting treatise into the mindset needed for the need management in this post COVID era, because it must always be acknowledged that businesses are not just treating with the tech society, but with two older generations that would still be engaged in the world of commerce for the next thirty years. Those forty years and above.
[Disclaimer: Taken from the article by Vale Afshar entitled “The impact of COVID-19: Customer service, digital transformation, and the new normal : https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-impact-of-covid-19-customer-service-digital-transformation-and-the-new-normal/ it uses the introspection of a renowned customer engagement specialist Mr. Michael Maoz to examine the changing face of business through technology. The insights are truly interesting. Michael Maoz, senior vice president of Innovation Strategy at Salesforce, is a customer experience and customer engagement management expert. Maoz shares his thoughts on impact of COVID-19 pandemic.]
