In James Bond movies, Q always provides the star agent with tools and gadgets that help him survive in the most surprising and challenging of circumstances. In my mind, the legendary British actor Desmond Llewelyn who played Q in most Bond films is still the ultimate engineer: his apps certainly didn't lack features.
So what do the 007's gadgets have in common with customer service? Well, from the customer service agents' perspective, Q is equally called for. In the times of the emancipated customer, way too many customer service agents are ill-equipped to handle what's important.
In many organizations, customer service is essentially an inbound call center. The advanced ones use email too, provide their agents with real-time access to customer data, and label themselves as contact centers. For how long is this enough?
Almost a decade ago, I worked with Finnish Railways to reorganize their customer service operations. During the project, we deployed an internet-based contact center solution that enabled joining the service personnel at remote train stations into virtual customer service teams. When the local personnel didn't have clients at their counter, they turned to their PCs and began serving customers via other communications methods.
What is needed now is a similar kind of revamp. Customer service agents need to be provided with tools and instructions to engage with customers in new ways, and in a more proactive manner. In addition, each and individual company will need to set priority levels to ensure that their agents know what is expected of them, and to ensure there's enough staff to maintain the desired activity level.
The change is an opportunity for agents to become Agents, evolving from a complaint counter into a customer delight team. And who wouldn't want that?