A millennial’s view on self-service vs. support calls

Growing up, I spent a lot of my free time watching cable TV. I have always been a detail-oriented person so I paid a lot of attention to what I was watching – what each episode was trying to teach us, the personalities of each character, and the commercials. Yes I said it, the commercials.

I have been bombarded with commercials every day, for as long as I can remember, so you can imagine that I grew a permanent perception of commercials just trying to make money off of me. This made me very skeptical as a person and caused me to be heavily dependent on researching things myself. Apparently, the majority of Millennials also feel the same way.

Take a look at this recent Millennials in Adulthood study by Pew Research Center. They found that only 19% of Millennials say most people can be trusted, compared to 40% of Baby Boomers. It’s difficult to explain Millennials’ low levels of social trust, but for me, it’s because of my experiences with TV commercials and telemarketing.

What I’m trying to say is that Millennials don’t trust traditional approaches – so telling us what the best is for us and then including how great your product is doesn’t carry much weight at all. We are independent and curious, which leads us to “Google” everything. And I mean everything.

This is why I believe self-service is essential for the future generation of customer experience (CX). It is a matter of being online or offline in an increasingly digital world. Millennials’ do not have the patience to be held on the phone for hours; they need the option to find the answers on their own. Whether it is done through frequently asked questions, social media sites or community forums, finding the answers should be intuitive, efficient, and fast and shouldn’t require any human intervention.

Another example that comes to mind is my dissatisfaction with customer support phone calls. It seems that every time I need help with a service, I am getting asked to buy another new service. It’s a frustration that would easily cause me to churn as a “silent switcher”, and I’m sure the majority of Millennials feel the same way. With self-service, if I see something that I am not interested in I can skip it immediately and move onto the next source (as opposed to having to give the awkward “no thank you” five times on a phone call).

My satisfaction with self-service even gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me more inclined to share my thoughts through social media. An obvious incentive is the relationship between self-service care and social media, knowing that I can share my experiences online and be known as the “expert” in a topic. I recommend giving this short infographic paper a read: Talking to Strangers: Millennials Trust People over Brands. Bazaarvoice found that 73% of Millennials say the customers care more about their opinions than the companies do – and that’s why they continue to share their opinions online.

I am only one person in a group of Millennials, but I believe I speak for the majority when it comes to self-service over customer support calls. We “Google” everything and we want to feel like we have the power to solve every problem. Helping others by communicating our service experiences through social media is an empowering way to change and affect customer experience management.

What are your thoughts? Do you find your answers better through self-service or customer support calls? Share your thoughts in the comments below, I’d like to know what you think.

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