Customer Service: Then and Now

Since the prehistoric period, trading and marketing were already existing. It was called before barter. Earlier merchants already realized the importance of customers. With the continuous advancement of trading and marketing, they learned how to handle the customers to earn their loyalty and stick with you.

Consumers from the past took the hardest effort to come to the store and extend the merchants on their concern about the products they acquired. Imagine the difficulty they experienced in traveling because of the scarcity of transportation. Therefore, today’s customers would surely be thankful because they would no longer experience it. Instead, they enjoy the convenience and accessibility that outsourcing customer service offers.

Through outsourcing customer service, many e-commerce people can provide the best customer support. It is essential for any business to achieve and secure customer loyalty and attract more customers to switch to your brand. On the other hand, customers now can enjoy the satisfaction and convenience that our modern technology offers to reach the product owners in case problems arise. They would no longer need to come to the store personally to extend their issues and concerns. From the comfort of their home, they can talk to the customer service agents who will assist them resolve the problems. Phone calls are the oldest and still preferred by most customers now, even millennials who grew up in the digitized world. But customers can choose from different platforms, such as email, live chat, and other social media channels.

Let’s take a glimpse of how customer service started and developed until this time where serving customers became effortless with the help of outsourcing customer service.

Customer service officially began in 1876 when great scientist Alexander Graham Bell invented the electric telephone. Customers could speak to the merchants via phone calls. It made people’s lives comfortable because they didn’t have to travel long distances to visit the stores and extend their concerns, like repairs, product change, or for product information. The switchboard was invented in 1894. With this, customers could directly contact stores and businesses.

In the 1960s, the “call center” first existed. They established a call center to achieve efficiency in serving the customers. A large number of phone operators were gathered in one location to handle customer inquiries. Then in 1962, Touch-Tone Dialing developed. It is a new technology where computers can recognize and respond to sounds produced from dialing. In 1967, the toll-free 1-800 number was created. Customers could call a specific number without passing through an operator. Meanwhile, the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology increased in the 1970s. But IVR’s complexity was costly for automating tasks in call centers.

When one of the ultimate things discovered by humans, the Internet, was introduced to the world, online customer service outsourcing started to flourish and continues to invade everything until this present time.

In the first week of October 1992, former US President George W. Bush declared “Customer Service Week.” In 1996, email and live chat emerged. They tend to be one of the best ways of interaction between brands and customers.

In 2008, social media started to succeed and have become widely used. Many outsourcing firms took advantage of it. Most customer-oriented businesses have begun to use social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to connect with their customers. In the late 2000s, remote desktop support developed. It allowed customers, not only to receive support from contact center agents but also to co-browse and personally perform their suggested actions.

Customer service has gone a long way, from the prehistoric and traditional methods up to the innovative method, which is outsourcing of customer service. But what matters is how your business can show to your customers that they are important and well-appreciated.

Always remember that customers are the reasons why you are in business.