Good news – the public, of all ages, is very willing to adopt customer service technology, provided that it is reliable, suitable, personalised, and safe.

Service Technologies: Developing Strategies is the latest study from the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) Breakthrough Research programme. More than 1,000 consumers and 20 UK organisations participated in the study, which found that the two most important concerns for customers are technological failure (21 per cent) and the impersonal nature of technology creating a barrier to a meaningful relationship with an organisation (20 per cent).

It is also very relevant that a significant proportion of customers – still one in 10 – specifically and actively seek a degree of human interaction, and require the choice of human or machine depending on circumstances. Replacing one with the other is often not acceptable.

There has, of course, been an enormous increase in the use of technology by all types and sizes of organisations. But in many cases these have been imposed on customers by organisations for their own perceived improvements in efficiency, rather than to improve choice of contact or offering, more convenience, or to enhance customer service.

It is clear from this research that the public can tell the difference. But it will accept, and welcome, technology where it perceives benefits in speed, accessibility, choice and efficiency.

A majority of customers have had good and bad experiences with technology. The key feature of importance is reliability, but there is also credibility – how many of you have been told that you cannot live at the postcode you say you do because it is not on the computer system?

Another key issue of initial slow take-up of technology has been security. But although 69 per cent of customers still say that security remains an important or very important issue, security was only rated 10th in terms of actual concerns – clearly things are getting better and trust is building.

A very encouraging sign is how positive people are about technology use by public sector organisations – who were found to have some of the best CRM systems. It is believed that, although their systems did also produce more efficiency, the primary objective was to genuinely provide better service rather than just achieve cost savings.

Among companies, Tesco was rated number one for ‘doing well’ on its use of service technology, but the retailer also came fairly high on the ‘doing poorly’ list, as did those in second (HSBC), third (Sainsbury’s) and fourth (Amazon). The reasons for this are clearly the high frequency of use of what is still a relatively new process. But it does mean that the technology side of an organisation’s relationship with its customers must be given sufficient importance, as it can seriously affect its overall image and reputation in the market.

The report shows that customers want ease of use and the choice between using technology or speaking to someone. The more valuable or more complex the transaction, or the more time-consuming the technology, the greater the desire to talk to someone for a resolution.

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