A few weeks ago while trying to make a change to my mobile plan, I had a customer experience that was poor at best and in this day and age, completely unnecessary.
I was in my account on my mobile carrier’s website trying to figure out how to add a temporary international data option. You’d figure that option would exist somewhere, right? But, after jumping from link to link, I couldn’t find anything close to what I was looking for.
So, I did the only thing left. A thing you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy. I clicked on “Contact Us”, found a phone number, and called customer support.
After successfully running through their IVR, I was naturally placed on hold. After several minutes, I was greeted by Sarah, who promptly asked me many of the same questions I’d answered to get through the IVR. Upon confirming my identity, Sarah asked: “How can I help you?”.
I explained my issue and hoped she’d be able to quickly resolve it. Luckily for me, there was a way to add an international data plan on the website. Great!
“Can you tell me where to find it?” I asked. I thought this was a pretty simple request.
After about ten minutes of Sarah first trying to understand where on the website I was, then her trying to guide me verbally to the area of the site where I could add the new data plan, I actually ended up finding my solution by sheer luck (in a different area than where I was being directed).
Finally!
After this ordeal, I couldn’t help but think about how the future of customer support would make this whole encounter a thing of the past. In fact, it were these poor customer experiences that we’ve built Glia to eradicate.
I also couldn’t help but imagine what my experience with this mobile carrier would’ve looked like had they been using Glia – our newest solution that allows companies to natively add our innovative best-in-class CoBrowsing capabilities to their existing customer support software or CRM platform.
From “How may I help you?” to “Let me help you!”
If my mobile carrier’s contact center was ably equipped with Glia, here’s how my experience could’ve gone:
Immediately preceding my call to customer support, I had run a search query on the site asking, “How do I add an international data plan?”. Only after failing to find an answer did I take the plunge and call. Like 57% of support calls, I was sitting right in front of my computer – logged into my mobile carrier’s website – still staring at a null set of query results for my question about adding the new data plan.
With Glia, my inbound call would immediately be tied to my live browsing session and my support agent would have an immediate leg up on offering me better support. In this case, instead of asking me “How may I help you?”, Sarah would’ve seen my browser page and known what I had just searched for.
“It looks like you’re trying to add an international data plan. Let me show you how to do that”, Sarah would say.
Through Glia, Sarah would offer me CoBrowsing – a seamless and secure tool that enables dual-cursor browsing for two people – and could easily visually guide me to the correct area of the website where I could add an international data plan.
Even better, she could watch as I added the plan myself, ensuring that I was doing it correctly. Or, if I was still having difficulty, Sarah could add it to my plan for me – all while I watch her do so.
In this hypothetical scenario, I could’ve been off the phone with Sarah in minutes instead of the 35 minutes it took during my actual experience.
Context is Key to Improving the Customer Experience
There’s no doubt that my imagined scenario was better than my actual experience. But even though it was imagined, it doesn’t mean it can’t actually exist. In fact, it can and it does. The imagined scenario is the type of customer experiences we work so hard at creating here at Glia.
In our minds, context is key to delivering a top-notch effortless experience for customers. If we’re going to live in a world ripe with data, let’s take it and use it to enhance the relationships between businesses and their customers.
