High tech
Still needs high touch
Sometimes artificial intelligence is too artificial and not that intelligent. Just another robot trying to think faster than we do and anticipate what we want before we ask or try to do it for ourselves.
When do we get to talk to a real person? When do we get to ask the robot to click on the crosswalks? Or the rooftops? Or the bicycles? To confirm they’re not a robot.
It gets very tiresome trying to do everything online, with no personal contact. Especially after months of lockdown and limited social engagement with anyone.
Click here, login, what’s your password? Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx and be introduced to more robots, and badly programmed switchboards where “your call is important to us, … but our menu has changed recently, please listen carefully.” NO! You listen carefully, I want to talk to a real person who cares about giving me good service.
Some companies do it well – efficiently using technology to make easy connections to the right people. (Social media are now abusing the technology to collect data and target audiences for advertisers and manipulators of the media, but that’s a subject for another day.)
I started advising businesses more than twenty years ago on how to use the internet and web-based technologies effectively, based on the lessons learned from my own painful and expensive experience as well as that of many other early adopters of e-commerce and online applications.
A short list of tips, tactics and techniques for success that still apply:
Turn the WWW upside down and think MMM – Manage, Measure and Monitor performance.
Worry less about what your website looks like and more about what it does.
Focus less on what it costs and more on how it pays.
Outstanding customer service cannot be automated. It requires high tech and high touch by well-qualified and well-trained customer service staff.
The risks are real, the opportunities are huge. Don’t be overly influenced by fear or greed.
Have a plan. Avoid the mistakes.
Be better. Do better. Be an enlightened entrepreneur.
Del Chatterson, your Uncle Ralph
Learn more about Enlightened Entrepreneurship at: LearningEntrepreneurship.com Read more of Uncle Ralph's advice for Entrepreneurs in Don't Do It the Hard Way & The Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide to Business Plans - 2020 Editions.
Read more Blog posts at: LearningEntrepreneurship Blogs.
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