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Call Centers During the Pandemic; When Later Is Better in Online Deliveries
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Welcome back. Customer-support centers are straining to answer a flood of new calls amid coronavirus lockdowns and social distancing strictures. In other news, it turns out that online shoppers care more about delivery updates toward the end of the process than they do at the beginning. And there are times to think twice about chasing sales with scarcity messages.
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Operators Aren’t Standing By
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Customer-call centers in the U.S. usually are packed with employees. PHOTO: JESSICA PONS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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America’s biggest companies are racing to overhaul customer-service operations that are ill-equipped to have employees working from home amid a pandemic.
Many customers who call the hotlines of airlines, retailers and financial-services firms, among others, encounter hourslong wait times, hearing recorded messages saying help is currently unavailable.
Some companies ask that customers manage their issues online or suggest that they hold off on seeking assistance altogether.
“The needs of how to deal with that needed to be massively reconfigured in real time,” said Jeff Lawson, chief executive of cloud-communications company Twilio. “There was the trickle, and then there was the wave, and then there was a tsunami.”
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Sometimes Later Is Better
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Keeping customers informed at the end of the delivery process can enhance positive feelings toward a company. PHOTO: ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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The waiting is the hardest part, or so the Tom Petty song goes. But maybe the waiting doesn’t have to be so hard.
That may be a lesson for online retailers from research conducted by Robert Bray, an associate professor of operations management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Dr. Bray discovered keeping customers informed at the end of the delivery process can have more value than at the beginning, with benefits such as mitigating frustration and enhancing positive feelings toward a company.
While transparency is appreciated, lots of early alerts can set expectations unreasonably high. “Starting with lots of feedback raises hopes, and ending with lulls in activity dashes them,” Dr. Bray said.
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Online retailers often use scarcity messages to encourage shoppers to buy right away. PHOTO: MARTIN TOGNOLA
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Anyone who has bought a book on Amazon is familiar with the message: “Only 2 left in stock—order soon.”
But research shows that such scarcity messages work best with time-sensitive and perishable products, such as hotel rooms or plane tickets, as well as unique items like collectibles or limited editions.
They are less effective with durable goods such as home-improvement products or kitchenware, in part because they can give shoppers the impression that the product is being pushed because it is undesirable, lower quality, obsolete or discontinued.
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PHOTO: SCANWELL HEALTH
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One company is striving to develop a user-friendly home test for the virus that causes covid-19. [Fast Company]
How virtual learning during the pandemic could change higher education. [HBR]
From adult toys to business software, the coronavirus is rearranging the subscription landscape. [WSJ]
A fast and easy user interface on Sony’s PS5 could help it battle Microsoft’s Xbox Series X. [Tom’s Guide]
Finished binge-watching everything on Netflix? Here’s how to make a board game with design thinking. [UX Planet]
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