Customer Care Management: Why Technology is Only Part of the Solution
by Elaine Berke
EBI Consulting
800-932-2141 www.ebiconsult.com
Thursday, April 8, 2025

The industry is focused on customer resource management. Yet, the most sophisticated customer care technologies are only part of the solution. In the search to satisfy customers, it is people as well as technology that are needed to provide real customer care and faster response. "People are still your greatest resource for customer service, " according to Elaine Berke, president of EBI Consulting, a management consulting and training firm dedicated to customer relationship management, leadership, and business growth.

Call centers, help desks, and customer service departments have a false sense of security when it comes to customer satisfaction. The customer calls because he or she needs to solve a problem. The customer is looking for service, which translates to accurate, courteous, and speedy communications that get the job done. The transaction may be acceptable to the customer or it may leave the customer feeling like a number. Without recognition that the customer is a person, or feelings generated to show caring and understanding, customer satisfaction is not likely.

Automation may make the situation worse; for example, when automation systematically disconnects a number of customers at peak times, or when customers are looped through endless menus only to be asked for the same information again with a live representative. Who hasn't been stuck on hold for some annoying length of time while having to listen to repeated recordings of the company's heartfelt customer commitment!

On the front line, service has little to do with relationship management or brand loyalty. Service is process, volume driven, scripted, and set in a tightly controlled, highly measured four minutes, with little or no leadership of quality. Some attempts at motivation are downright insulting. For example, one call center manager distributed small mirrors so employees could see themselves smiling on the phones. Employees used them to put on makeup instead.

If customer care is the objective, it requires an investment in people. It is people who turn a transaction into an interaction giving customers the complete value and service they deserve. It is people who build brand loyalty. It is people who ultimately make the technology work for each customer. "Until companies see the value of investing in people, their investment in technology will produce limited returns. Service is the only differentiating factor."