Technology becomes more and more sophisticated, but we’re not in the age of robots just yet. As technology evolves, one thing remains constant: the knowledge that customer service matters and customers still appreciate human interaction. We can see this notion in Bank of America’s announcement of their newest banking innovation: ATM with Teller Assist.
Teller Assist gives Bank of America customers at the ATM access to a range of services during extended hours in the form of a real-time video with a Bank of America teller. If customers want to cash a check in certain denominations, deposit a check with cash back, make loan or credit card payments, and other transactions that an ATM machine isn’t typically capable of, they may now choose to interact with Teller Assist to make this possible. What was once a limited interaction with a machine has become an interaction rife with options and communication.
Kat Knox of Bank of America said of Teller Assist, We know that customers want to bank on their schedule not ours so we are constantly looking at how to deliver more convenient banking options to them. This sentiment is a growing trend see our blog on WebRTC : more and more businesses are seeking to enable their customers to communicate in the ways they most prefer.
Opening your business to the methods of conversation your customers prefer is easy. If your business has a website or ecommerce site, you can improve sales and customers’ satisfaction by offering a telephone support option. In the past you would have needed a dedicated staff sitting and waiting for phone calls, but with technology from DialogTech, we can find the customer support rep wherever they may be. It’s simple: a customer calls a number or clicks a link on a website. The DialogTech Find Me and Call Distributor technologies leap into action, and the call is routed to a team of distributed support personnel. This team may consist of outside sales reps taking calls on cell phones, part time employees working from home, or traditional office staff. The best part is that you don’t need to purchase any hardware or premise-based software all you need is a phone, any phone.
Your phone can help out in other ways too. Take voice broadcasting, for example. Many businesses choose to send voice broadcasts to their customers for appointment reminders, satisfaction surveys, product updates, etc. A typical voice broadcast operates in a similar way as an ATM machine: the user can interact with it and get information from it, but the interactions are limited. However, with an intelligent voice broadcast integrated with an IVR, your customer can have the option to connect to a live agent. Just like Bank of America, you give your customer the choice of how they wish to interact with you.
Bank of America’s Teller Assist is new in its execution, but not in the theory it’s based upon: sometimes your customers need a human being, and it’s in your best interest to give them the option.
For more on how you can improve your customers’ experience by giving them the option to talk, check out our free white paper, The Next Generation of Virtual Call Centers: Beyond the Cloud.