Balancing Time in the Experience Economy
Up until the experience economy, the focus has been on convenience and the notion of “time well saved.” With the Experience economy that has shifted to “time well spent” and the experience being memorable and personal (Pine, HBR).
Both the notion of “time well saved” and “time well spent” must exist. The need for frictionless support that’s quick as possible when something goes wrong is ideal. When Target sends me medicine that expired over a year ago, I want a refund in a couple minutes. The things I must do, but don’t want to spend my time on are best as a “time well saved” model. But, for the things I do enjoy—like traveling—time well spent is very important.
The development of the Customer Service industry is an interesting one, that tends to break the shift to an experience model. The main KPIs are commonly average call handle time, or number of calls taken. And let’s face it—if your registers are down and you can’t ring sales you want someone to fix it, and fix it fast—not create some extensive experience, or chat about the weather. But for Consumer facing support, a lot of companies don’t tend to think of this as an opportunity for people to genuinely connect with the brand, or get advice/ help.
Customer service should be and is a part of the brand experience—so companies need to treat it as such instead of just being a cost center that they continually need to lower the cost of. Can you be smart about what technology you use and the automation you have for your service team to make it easier for them, and cheaper for you? Yes. You’d be stupid not to. But there needs to be a clear investment in the people and their time with customers—like Zappos has made. Zappos celebrates the longest calls, and their employees were encouraged to stay on the line for as long as necessary (Business Insider). So, in this model they let their customer determine the time they spend with the rep. If they need something quick and want to get on with their day, then they can do that. But if they have tons of questions about different shoes and their fit, then they are empowered to stay on and make sure the time is well spent.
One of the tools that usually is used to drive down the average call time, or in this case—average chat time, is either AI or a list of recommended replies. But, I believe we’re using these tools in the wrong way in customer service—by trying to just make it easier for the agents to get through the call/chat as fast as possible. However, it could be used to serve up a completely different experience—a brand experience. If you programmed in some funny lines within these recommended responses, it changes it from the agent can help them the fastest and get them off the chat, to a brand experience. The emphasis being on still helping the agent get through the call/chat, still helping the customer, and building brand experience on top. Moosejaw is a great example of funny customer service, and a unique in-store experience as well.
Joe Pine argues that if you have a great experience, then the experience is the marketing. Moosejaw’s core value of “Be notable, do things people will tell 10 friends about,” is just that. And guess what, that’s exactly how I heard of this company—“have you ever interacted with Moosejaw? They’re so hilarious…”