Ditch the Script: How to Personalize Real-Time Customer Service

Every actor’s worst nightmare is forgetting their lines. Just imagine it: you’re standing in front of a crowd of hundreds, deep into the Second Act of The Importance of Being Earnest and suddenly, your mind goes blank. The only sound you hear is the nervous beating of your heart. Luckily there’s usually a director waiting in the wings to whisper your line to you. If only social customer service agents had it so easy. But then again, the title of Oscar Wilde’s famous play offers a great lesson for contact centers: it’s more important to be authentic, to be human and personalized, than it is to flawlessly deliver a customer service script. With an  increasing number of companies competing on customer experience — which essentially means competing to deliver the most authentic experience to customers who increasingly demand tailored service — it’s time for contact centers to ditch the script and personalize real-time social customer service. Here are four ways to make that happen. The first two concern agent behavior, while three and four focus on technology and social customer service software.

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