Was it good for you?

[ChrisPope]

Part 2 of the Blog series focuses on the much talked about 'Experience', it might be more than what you think. By definition experience is a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something: Such as 'My encounter with the bear in the woods was a frightening experience.'

Granted, not all of us regularly come across a bear in the woods, but its important to remember that an experience is more than just the ability to login and complete a single transaction. Much activity these days centers around having a delightful user experience, which often focuses in on a cool website, a slick app on a smartphone. They are all important, but as is being able to speak to a Service Desk Agent in a timely manner, having a polite and productive conversation, with an outcome I am satisfied with.

When requesting services or reporting an issue with one, we are often judging based on the mood or situation we are in. A new phone is launched via a shopping portal, and its delightful, shiny, lots of new features, and I want one. I order it, my manager approves it and 'voila' is appears on my desk and I am a happy camper. 3 days later, said shiny new phone doesn't work or I am having an issue, and its time to report an incident as I cannot send an important email, everything is annoying, why ask me to fill in all these fields, just fix the problem would you!.

Defining what information needs to be captured is a crucial element in delivery of services. Ask too much, and it either doesn't get completed or you end up with rubbish information. Ask to little, and you constantly have to ask the requestor for more information, which is annoying and also time consuming. Finding the right balance will enable the user to request/report quickly and easily and the service providers to be able to act and fulfill quickly, in many cases automatically.   Most modern experiences rely on having a login or pre-registered information. Where service providers can gain a lot of credibility and trust, is by leveraging this information freely provided by the requestor to drive the process, and only have to ask at the time of request for specific information to enable fulfillment. There are countless, and continue to be so, whereby the requestor is constantly requested for more information thats readily available through foundational data, or previous orders and such like, but it under utilised as a result.

Providing multi-channel options for the end user is another great way to ensure services are being requested and consumed. Phone, Web, Mobile, SMS are all ways in which providers can open their front door. Having a consistent experience is a major benefit. If I have to change the way I request based on the device I am using, then I am more prone to error and frustration. Reusing data across devices is another huge enabler.

Once I have asked for what I want, then make it easy for me to know where my request is, what happens next and manage my expectations. Similar to SMS and chat applications, I have expectations often way beyond whats capable in being delivered, however thats the way the world is. If you are able to provide context and some level of scope to the end user of what its going to take to fulfill the request, many times that will prevent those escalations and constant follow ups of 'Where is my stuff'.a

Often, by being transparent and telling the requestor what is going to happen next, although not instant, is a great way to manage expectations but also affirm to them the request is important and that it can be tracked. Transparency is a huge win for both requestor and provider. Sounds a bit like communication doesn't it, which in most annual employee surveys is often #1 to be acted on as a corporate objective!

In Blog #3 we will focus on Delivery of Services......

#GWP