By James Ramey, DeviceBits
Search engines have been widely used for almost twenty years now. Can anyone even remember the last time they turned to a phone book to find information on a person, place, or thing? A show of hands: are there people reading this column who’ve never even seen a phone book?
We trust search engines because they’ve been in our lives for so long, and for the most part, they’re effective in helping connect consumers with retailers they’re interested in.
Advertisement
The danger, of course, is that it’s not all that difficult to get content on the web, nor to have it appear in a search engine result. Phishers, scammers and anyone with the intention of stealing information and personal data are now leveraging search engines for their own use. A recent story illustrates how harmful individuals are taking advantage of unknowing people looking for contact information for mega-sized companies and their customer service departments, such as Facebook and Google.
When a person types in “Facebook customer service”, there are results that appear that look to be official web pages offering up contact numbers for the company’s customer service department. This could be mimicked for any retailer in business.
However, these phone numbers actually direct individuals to scammers who are quick to use tactics that take control of personal security information.
Search Engines Are Not The Necessary Evil
It’s not that search engines are necessarily bad, they still service a purpose in obtaining useful information. But when it comes to engaging and communicating with a certain retailer, such as contacting the customer service team at a specific company, there may be a better, safer, way.
Customer service is moving toward more digital support and for many retailers a self-support environment, where consumers log onto a retailer’s website or social channels, type in their query and access a variety of digital support materials available to help answer their question. And since those channels and the website are controlled by the brand, the information is more trusted and reliable than what may be found in general search engine results.
Putting More Control in the Consumer’s Hands
The upside here, besides the increased security of the data, is the fact that people of all age groups are now used to searching online for answers to their own queries. Favorite things to do in Key West? Best minivan for my family? Cooking instructions for a turkey at Thanksgiving? These are all questions we ask a search engine, and the results help get answers to what we’re looking for.
Customers call on service departments all the time, or even walk into their local retail store to get help. Consider a new bakeware purchase from a cooking retailer; often times after the purchase, customers will have a variety of questions regarding their account, or the functionality of the bakeware itself, particularly if there’s technology involved. Rather than waiting on hold for thirty minutes to speak with a customer service agent to ask questions, this same customer service information is now pre-loaded onto the retailer’s website and digital properties like Facebook, accessible to any customer, anytime, anywhere, for a more convenient way of handling customer queries and concerns.
With today’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies, the more customers utilize this type of channel with a positive outcome, the “smarter” the process becomes for future customer interactions.
For example, the way to optimize search for self-service is to implement a metric that allows the best results to match a user’s satisfaction rating. The best measure of quality for search results is content effectiveness. Content effectiveness combines the frequency with which a customer selects a piece of content based on the search terms and the quality of the interaction with content as measured by positive feedback, time spent on content and deflection of calls to customer service.
As more customers rely on branded retailer websites and self-service digital support materials, the more convenient and safer the customer support process will become in the future.
James Ramey is CEO of DeviceBits, a software company that services clients through a predictive and personalized understanding of interactive tutorials, adaptive FAQs, Interactive Guides, and Videos designed to for self-serving consumers. For more info visit www.devicebits.com.
