System failure and fuzzy thinking.

I have been looking for an excuse to write about a number of negative call centre and customer service experiences I have had recently. I didn't want to just have a rant, although I felt like it, but to find something more interesting in the stories. And guess what - it's social computing!

What frustrates me the most, is a feeling that no one really cares about any problem I have. The ownership of my problem is is not owned by any particular person, but by the system, by the database. There is no room for imprecision, either my problem fits the precise path, or it doesn't, and if it doesn't I might as well give up. Only on very rare occasions do I get to deal with a grown-up, someone empowered to make decisions, to listen to my problems and do something about them.

Now don't get me wrong, I realise there needs to be some sort of system. It just needs to be a system that can accommodate and tolerate fuzziness. This is where social computing steps in. Giving the people stuck in the system some means of talking to each other, some means of noticing things and passing on that noticing to each other would allow for much more learning to be built into the system and much more subtlety to be available to those working in it. Whether it is a forum on which to discuss things that go wrong, or a wiki on which to discuss the things that go right, it doesn't really matter, just so long as there is a place for people to share what they are learning.

I don't doubt for a moment that there are complex heuristic technologies built into the systems that the helplines deploy but that is not what I am talking about here. I am talking about a much messier, much more human "ooh that's interesting" sort of learning. The sort that humans can remember and apply when talking to other humans!

Comments

[Dan Thornton]

Things like Get Satisfaction, and User Voice perhaps, which allow customers to interact and help each other, and also companies to then help where necessary?

[Euan]

Yes - if only more used them!

[Stuart Glendinning Hall]

Yes, and Get Satisfaction only really works if the supplier bothers to take customers' queries seriously, rather than it being in effect just another bauble on the web 2.0 xmas tree;-)

[David Cushman]

Brando-Digital (my lot) are signing up for Get Satisfaction - just as soon as we get our website live (any day now).
Stuart is right. Being able to listen is just part of the story. Actually listening and responding is a whole new ball game.
Euan, agreat take on the whole call centre thing.
They dehumanise don't they - turn people into yes/no computers only able to do what the system allows.
Remember the Call Centre Customer Manifesto?
http://fasterfuture.blogspot.com/2007/10/call-centre-customer-manifesto.html

[Anne Marie McEwan]

Responding to what David says about dehumanising work, I thought you might like to hear what Deming has to say about the need to transform work, and step outside dysfunctional systems:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kCL3sewRbkI

Self-esteem, dignity, co-operation, curiosity and a yearning for learning - it's what we crave.

Near the end of the clip, Deming speaks about joy in work and joy in learning. I think that what you are proposing, Euan, restores some opportunity for learning and fun in otherwise soul-destroying jobs.

[Euan]

Thanks for the video link Anne Marie - great stuff.

[Andrew Mitchell]

Two areas of added value where this can really help companies:

1. Customers/clients will help one another.

2. The most important/critical customer issues will bubble to the top and can be addressed by the company more rapidly.

[Jon Husband]

Self-esteem, dignity, co-operation, curiosity and a yearning for learning - it's what we crave.

Fits nicely with Fred Emery's (of Emery & Trist fame) six principles for Participative Work Design (work design by the people actually doing the work ;-)

- Elbow room for decision making
- Opportunities for continuous on-the-job learning
- Sufficient variety
- Mutual support and respect
- Meaningfulness
- A desirable future, not a dead end

DVD's on Participative Work Design

[Anne Marie]

"Work designed by people actually doing the work" - hurrah!! Imagine that, eh?

Many thanks for the Emery link, Jon. Job design, job enrichment and job enlargement building on the insights of the early pioneers sound to me like elements of high-performance work (HPW) practices.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) here in the UK include HPW in their definition of smart working, claiming it as a 'new paradigm'.

http://www.cipd.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/62401E9E-0160-4B71-A477-3366BD1405DB/0/smartworkingguide.pdf

No mention in the report of social media technologies nor their enormous possibility in engaging people through the sort of mutually supporting, self-determined, collaborative learning that Euan was talking about.

[Euan]

Ah but you see the CIPD are experts .....

[Jon Husband]

Hehe ... my ex-team leader when I worked with the Hay Group in London was the president (or Managing Director, I forget which) of the CIPD for the period 2005 - 2007.

Job design, job enrichment and job enlargement building on the insights of the early pioneers sound to me like elements of high-performance work (HPW) practices.

Anne-Marie, to your point ... I believe that I am not a practitioner of over-self-promotion (and I hope but am not certain that Euan might vouch for that), but you might find this blog post (Will Enterprise 2.0 Drive Management Innovation ?) suggests that much of what might be useful in addressing HPW has been around for a while, but begs the issue of new framing.

I'd be glad to learn what you think of the blog post.

[Anne Marie]

Jon, what a stunning post. There are so many jumbled responses in my mind that it is hard to know where to begin :-)

First the CIPD - yep, with you both on the institution. The person who commissioned the report is the nicest, kindest and most thoughtful person. I still disagree vehemently with the 'new paradigm', and they have really missed the boat in not seeing what you are proposing in your blog post, Jon.

Two quick things. "That both centralization and decentralization of information flows in the hands of knowledge workers can operate simultaneously and effectively is, I think, a significant state change, and should be used to inform the basic assumptions about the design of knowledge work." Spot on. Simultaneous centralisation and decentralisation of control (for which also read information flows) is a topic that interests me deeply. btw, I did not know about Stan Davis - thank you!

Second thing, briefly. Fabulous to see Richard Florida being referenced, I heard him speak last year at the University of Waterloo. This video lasts about 45 minutes but if you have the time, I found this spellbinding:

http://www.2017.uwaterloo.ca/floridavid1.htm - this might going off topic a bit but I would love as many people as possible to hear this.

[Jon Husband]

Anne Marie ...

Thanks for the kind words, and I am glad you feel you got something from the post.

You mentioned the University of Waterloo. Are you a fellow Canadian ?

I live in Vancouver, tho' once upon a time I lived in Guelph, about 30 minutes down the road from Waterloo.

[gordonrae]

The problem with problem solving was expressed well by Herbert Simon, when he said that we solve a problem by describing it so that the answer becomes obvious.

Most call centre practice seems to be designed around scripts. By the end of the process, the caller's query can be fitted neatly into a category. But at the start, and on the journey, everything is ambiguous and equivocal.

One improvement would be to train call centre workers to be more intuitive, give them permission to 'colour outside the lines'. Another way, if you must have people stick to the scripts, is to design scripts that help reduce the ambiguity in what the caller is saying.