▲Infographic. Figure/IC photo
According to the China News Network, on January 28, for consumers to reflect that some businesses' intelligent customer service is not "smart", it is difficult to transfer manual customer service, etc., the China Consumer Association said that operators can not pre-sales "artificial", after-sales "smart", and even under the guise of intelligent customer service, intentionally create communication barriers, block consumers from contacting operators, and refuse to assume due obligations and responsibilities.
There is no doubt that business needs to communicate, whether it is selling products or providing services. Providing and doing a good job in after-sales service is the obligation of merchants and the basic rights and interests enjoyed by consumers. This is particularly important in the era of online shopping.
Purchase goods and services in offline physical stores, "hand touch is true, seeing is believing", you can experience, you can try, and you can also compare and consult in detail. But online shopping is very different, visible, untouchable, there is no necessary "truth" if there is a picture, "for reference only" or even a "photo deception" that does not match the picture at all. The importance of online store after-sales service is highlighted.
▲Screenshot of an e-commerce after-sales service. Photo / Screenshot of an e-commerce shopping platform
However, the customer service hotlines of some online stores and brands are a bit anxious. The worry is not that these customer service attitudes are not good, but more often than not, they can't find anyone at all. The reason is that merchants generally set up the so-called intelligent customer service that can only fix the phone.
Are these intelligent customer service attitudes good? Very good! Even if the customer is not inferior, the machine without emotion will not "play temper". But the machine that provides intelligent services will only execute a pre-set question-and-answer program, and the few words that are repeated over and over again can often solve some simple, innocuous small problems, but for some targeted key problems, they are often helpless.
The "pain points", "blockages" and "difficulties" that intelligent customer service cannot solve require manual customer service to intervene in a timely manner. The problem is that intelligent customer service is not top of things, and manual customer service cannot top things, resulting in impatient consumers can only stare dryly. This is the most dissatisfied and difficult to accept place for consumers, and it is also the problem that has been criticized the most after the gradual popularization of intelligent customer service in recent years.
Why is this happening? Some merchants do not have enough manpower and manual customer service busy lines, which is a reason why customers wait for access for too long. On the other hand, I am afraid that it is not excluded that some merchants will regard intelligent customer service as a "shield" to cover their ears and steal bells and a "scarecrow" to shirk responsibility.
When selling, someone receives, patiently and meticulously asks and answers to customers; once sold, people disappear, and this pre-sales "artificial" and after-sales "intelligence" has undoubtedly become the cover of some merchants to avoid consumer demands and evade the after-sales service responsibilities that should be assumed. And this is essentially a kind of deception and infringement.
In this regard, it can not stop at public opinion condemnation, but needs to establish a corresponding constraint mechanism and strengthen supervision, stipulate the intervention standards and response time of manual customer service, and cannot let consumers encounter after-sales problems but always find manual customer service that can "speak people's words" and solve problems.
And the merchant should also have the sense of active service, if over-reliance on this kind of so-called intelligent customer service that will only say "car rumble talk", bring consumers a bad consumer experience, but also is not conducive to their own business development, and eventually become a "lose-lose".
Author | Xu Jianhui (Staff)
Edit | Li Xiaoxiao
Proofreading | Liu Jun