Do You Know Better Than Your Customers?

Presented as an evolution in omni-channel customer care, the concept of right-channeling has nonetheless met resistance from many within the contact center community.

Today’s era, after all, is one of customer centricity. It is one of putting the customer – and the customer’s demands – above all else.

How can a strategy that imposes decisions and constraints on a customer possibly mesh with that philosophy? How can it possibly represent anything other than a regressive contradiction?

On the surface, it cannot. If a disparity exists between what the business is imposing and what the customer is demanding, the business is not adhering to a truly customer-first mindset. It is not putting the customer’s precise preference above all else.

To find potential justification for a paternalistic approach, one must look beyond the surface. Even then, there is no guarantee one will find sufficient reason to impose policy on the customer.

Demand vs. Preference

One advocating for a concept like right-channeling recognizes a distinction between a customer’s demand and a customer’s preference. Whereas a customer may state a preference for engagement in a particular channel, his core demand may be considerably fundamental.

In such a dichotomy, a "fast, accurate, complete answer to my inquiry" would represent the actual demand. "Live chat" would represent the preferred mechanism for satisfying that demand.

Whereas demand results from the customer’s internal sense of value, the preference emerges from his potentially limited knowledge of the best way to achieve that value.

If a business, therefore, could produce a faster, more accurate, more complete answer via another channel – such as web self-service—steering a customer in that direction would produce more value. It would better meet the customer’s demand.

Right-channeling would represent a better means of meeting the customer’s demands. And if meeting that demand reflects customer centricity, imposing a channel on the customer is actually more customer centric than letting the customer’s channel preference prevail.

Embracing Innovation

When expressing a preference, a customer is limited by both the current existence of solutions and his knowledge of those potential solutions.

A business benefits from more vivid insight into existing solutions and the ability to create new, superior ones. If a strategy resulting from those advantages better meets customer demand, is it truly antithetical to customer centricity? Is adhering to the customer’s inherently handicapped preference truly the more desirable approach?

To illustrate this point, thought leaders will often point to the invention of the MP3 player. Whereas customers knew they wanted to listen to music on the go, few could envision a user-friendly device that allowed them to store thousands of songs digitally – and thus provide a more valuable listening experience.

Lacking knowledge of the future, many customers likely advocated for a better Walkman or Discman. By instead creating MP3 players like the Rio and iPod, were companies like Diamond and Apple operating in contrast to the notion of customer centricity? They were, after all, ignoring what customers were saying.

In that scenario – and in any other situation involving innovation – the business possesses a unique ability to drive value for its customers. How would ignoring that ability possibly be the more customer centric approach?

Know the Why

By distinguishing customer demand from customer preference, businesses foster a framework in which they can—and, in fact, should—impose decisions and constraints on customers. They create a scenario in which ignoring a customer’s preference can represent the optimal form of customer centricity.

That power created by that framework should not be taken lightly.

For starters, the fact that a preference may represent a means to an end does not mean it always does.

While some customers say they prefer a particular channel because it, from their limited perspective, is the best pathway to their more fundamental demand, others absolutely consider the channel the demand.

Some customers demand live agent interactions because they specifically want to speak with live agents. Forcing them to use an alternative channel – regardless of whether it is theoretically more effective or efficient – is not customer centric.

Don’t Lie

In many cases, customer demand and preference will differ. That disparity does not, however, give a business carte blanche to impose its own preferences on customers. Honesty—and accountability—remain pivotal to the process.

If a certain channel is inherently better equipped to meet a customer demand, a business should steer the customer to that channel. If, however, the channel merelyappears better because the business has not properly developed the customer’s preferred channel, steering a customer to that channel is not indicative of a customer centric philosophy. A customer centric business would, instead, focus on properly developing the preferred channel.

Distinguishing customer preference from customer demand is not an excuse for inertia. It is a call to create the experience the customer truly wants.

It, certainly, is not an excuse for insincerity. Co-opting the preference-demand disparity to route customers into lower-cost or more business-centric channels is unquestionably antithetical to customer centricity.