Years ago, we thought of robots, intelligent devices and augmented reality lenses as distant and unattainable technologies. But surprise! AI arrived sooner than we expected and is changing our lives.
Remember the Yellow Pages?
Fortunately, they were reduced to simple contacts on our cell phones. This has saved us countless hours to find a contact.
And what can you tell me about the evolution of the abacus to digital calculators?, technology has always been meant to make our lives easier. Gone are the days when we had to make long phone calls or send letters. Now, with a simple click, we can access the information we need in seconds.
But what about customer service?
Often, renewing a passport, making a medical appointment or carrying out a consular procedure can be a time-consuming task. It seems that we have gone back to the 19th century, when we had to wait weeks for a plumber to come and fix a pipe. But why can't customer service systems evolve the way other technologies have?
We'll talk about that another day (wink, wink), but for now, we'll show you the evolution of customer service so you can understand where we come from and where we're going.
The birth of the telephone: 1870
Imagine this: you communicate through letters and smoke signals. Sending a text message is unimaginable! But one day, an inventor named Alexander Graham Bell created the telephone!
The first device was large, with a microphone and funnel-shaped speaker, but from there, phones have evolved into super pocket-sized devices. What had been created was the beginning of a revolution.
Call centers are here to stay: 1960
We advanced a little further in time and you get to do a procedure at the bank, but you run into hundreds of customers who are waiting for instructions to open an account. This situation without a call center would be chaos. So, in a remote corner, the idea of call centers was born. And, there they were, sitting at their desks, wearing bulky headphones and paper notebooks to jot down customer requests. There were no computers or touch screens, just dedicated people and a bunch of phones that were constantly ringing.
Technology was given a voice: IVR 1970
Until then, when you called a company or institution, you found a human operator who treated you kindly (or not so kindly) and passed you on to the right person.
But, it was time to start getting the information you needed without waiting in line.
IVRs became the way for companies to efficiently handle a large number of phone calls and provide information and assistance to their customers more quickly and conveniently. Instead of waiting in a long phone line, you could follow the instructions and get what you needed instantly.
A Before and After: 1990 Birth of the Internet
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created a global information network that allowed computers to talk to each other. It was like turning on the light in a dark room. Now you could send an email to your lawyer or search for photos of the product you wanted.
From this moment on, we have encountered hundreds of developments that, although we knew they would come, we never imagined that they would do it so quickly, but there are companies that are still in the past. Don't be one of them!
Now, the real revolution is in how AI can deliver more empathetic customer service experiences.
Through machine learning, AI systems are analyzing large amounts of data to understand and provide better answers to the needs and preferences of your customers.
In short...
The evolution of customer service technologies is amazing and we only touch a small part of this story. From typewriters to chatbots, constant progress has made our lives easier while saving us time and money.
So the next time you need help with a problem, remember that AI is here to make your user experience more empathetic than ever. Welcome to the future of customer service!
