But as Ken Dickerson of San Augustine, Texas, will tell you, using humans instead of robots isn’t new at all.
“It’s the oldest kind of customer service around—it’s also the best,” he said.
Dickerson works as a relay technician for the Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative, which serves a largely rural service area of almost 8,000 square miles covered by 7,000 miles of distribution lines.
“The last thing I want is to be standing in some field trying to get an answer to a technical question and hearing ‘Your call is important to us—please hold,’” he said.
Dickerson has been buying electrical relays from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) for 20 years. “I’m always greeted by a friendly voice and get the help I need,” he said of the times he has called with a question or problem. “Call me old-fashioned, but real customer service requires real people.”
At SEL, these “real people” make up a team of customer service phone operators located at four of the company’s U.S. branches.
“We surprise callers all the time who say they weren’t expecting a live person to answer the phone,” said Jenny Gonzales, who oversees the group. “SEL never went back to the ‘old way’ of providing personalized customer service. We never changed.”
Of the roughly 375 calls that phone representatives answer each day, 100 or so are technical inquiries and the others are customer service-related, she said.
“If we can’t answer the customer’s question, we’ll transfer them to an expert who’s in the same region as the customer,” she said, adding that if an expert isn’t immediately available, “we ensure that one will call the customer back—quickly.”
What’s more, SEL is committed to 24/7 service. Customer service operators answer phones during business hours, while the operations center and security team take calls at night and respond to emergencies.
“We are very focused on delivering good customer service,” said Gonzales. So focused that she and Dickerson, though separated by 2,129 miles, know each other on a first-name basis.
“Ma’am,” Dickerson replied when asked about his 20 years as an SEL customer, “the reason I’m standing here talking to you all the way from Texas is because you guys have the best customer service I’ve ever dealt with—hands down. Jenny has never let me down when I’ve called. In fact, no one there has let me down.”That’s a good thing, too, since nothing seems to irritate customers more than not being able to reach a live person on the phone, according to a national customer service survey conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.
David Costello, SEL chief sales & services officer, understands why it strikes a nerve. Customers feel devalued and held at arm’s length when they can’t get through to someone capable of assisting them, he said, adding that automation lacks the critical thinking and empathy that humans possess.
“You can’t automate caring,” he said. “Our customer service operators are caring, knowledgeable, and friendly human beings.”
Developing sincere, one-on-one relationships with customers differentiates SEL from many other companies, he explained, and it often starts with employees who answer the phones.
“We don’t use call centers run by third parties. We don’t use an answering machine or some slick recorded message with 18 options to wade through. We say we care about the customer, and we show it, every day.”
And it shows each time Gonzales’s phone lights up and rings.
“Schweitzer Engineering, this is Jenny,” she says in a welcoming voice. “How can I help you?”