The next time you have a run-in or an awkward situation with a customer service team, consider that it may not be personal, but rather that the agent you happened to get is dealing with software that is not appropriate. It seems unbelievable that in an era when everyone is talking about "digital transformation," and many boast that they understand this expression to be primarily a cultural change, when it comes down to it, there is so little communication about something as crucial to a company as software.
It's not just us saying this; it's also what the specialist company Freshworks says in a recently published report based on interviews with 400 employees involved in sales and customer experience in the United States. The results of this report are surprising because they highlight the huge differences between reality and employees' expectations when it comes to working with the most optimal software for their job.
This inadequacy is significant, as its most immediate consequence is economic and quantifiable: within the geographical scope of the study (which is not universal but is significant), the impact of poorly chosen or poorly implemented software is 516 million hours of work lost each year; or the equivalent in purely monetary terms, $8.3 billion annually. These figures do not suggest that feeling comfortable with software is merely a matter of personal preference.
The influence of employees on the day-to-day running of a company is nothing new. According to the data from this survey, one in four employees say they have some influence over their own planning (28%), one in five can influence their choice of workplace (20%), and one in six (17%) can even influence something as seemingly "minor" as the food and drinks available in workplace vending machines. However, only a meager 7% of employees claim to have any control over the software they use.
If software weren't important, it would be a non-issue. But it is important. So much so that when these sales and customer service employees are asked what factor has the greatest impact on their ability to do their job well, the tables are completely turned: almost half (47%) say that factor is the software they use, more than planning their own work (41%), and certainly much more than the other items mentioned above, because only one in six (17%) consider that impact to be due to their position in the company, and an almost ridiculous figure (6%) attribute it to their ability to choose which snacks should be in the vending machines.
The importance of software is so high that it is even a reason to consider leaving one's job in one in four cases (24%); and if we limit that question to millennial or younger employees, the figure rises to almost one in three (30%). And in the overall balance, exactly half (50%) say it outright: "If I am forced to use software that I hate, it will be much more difficult to satisfy consumers."
Having this ability to influence the software used would make employees feel more respected and involved with management, as six out of ten respondents (60%) maintain; so it is not surprising that for almost half (43%), this influence would boost their morale when doing their job.
A job with more morale is a job well done. This is not insignificant, since doing a good job in sales and customer experience is a factor of satisfaction for almost two-thirds of employees (64%), more so than other factors such as being eligible for a bonus (50%), forming friendships with coworkers (47%), having opportunities for career advancement (35%), or owning company stock options (18%).
So, yes, choosing the software is definitely an important factor, to the extent that more than half of those surveyed would prefer to do so if they had to choose between this option and an alternative such as a vacation or indirect financial compensation.
There is one final piece of data that confirms the impression that something needs to change in corporate environments. That fact is that in very similar percentages, in both cases more than half of those surveyed say that having some control over software will generate more satisfied customers (53%) and also increase productivity (52%). The combination of a better customer experience, fewer hours lost, and greater efficiency during those hours can only result in a positive outcome.
So for employers, the conclusion is clear: no matter how good the software may be according to the contractor's version, or according to the indications of the relevant departments (usually IT), software is only good if the person responsible for using it in customer relations gives it the green light.
And for the hundreds who are aware of this situation, as we said at the beginning, it's a little nod that appeals to their good nature: be patient, perhaps the agent assigned to your case has enough to deal with fighting with software that they neither want, nor have been able to choose, nor have the ability to give feedback on their user experience.
Photo byBrendan ChurchonUnsplash
