Poor Customer Service - Is It Technology or Management To Blame

I have come across some pretty interesting articles since our last newsletter which were both enlightening and alarming at the same time. The first had me roaring with laughter at first, but as I read deeper into the article I was not enjoying the read. The premise was a new technology that can be utilized in Call Centers which will (I guess using similar technology to a Lie Detector) determine the emotional and mental state of customer service representatives as they respond to calls. On the surface one might say, "Wow what a wonderful tool." Quite dehumanizing, but also quite efficient as the system will without any emotion make a recommendation as to when a Customer Service Representative is up to the job or not. What is the manager's role in the process? Make sure the system is powered up? Deliver the report to the employee? Talk about delegation of authority!

I was reading another article just the other day that spotlighted a major Retail chain that recently introduced a real time sales measurement device that can track sales associates every activity over certain periods of time and use the information to schedule work times for high sales achievers to work peak periods and lower performers to work off hours. Again on the surface, "Wow what a wonderful tool."

My concern is not that we are finding more and more ways to technologically replace our managers with machines (robots) but that we are not giving enough thought to what it is doing to the human element of Human Resources. Are we finally reaching a point in our employee relationships where the employee is going to be treated exactly as that one in one million computer chip that is unceremoniously taken out of the production line? If the employee does not reach the metric then terminate!

I would highly recommend that for any of you who are managers be aware of the technology that is being developed to replace your skills, and do your best to work with your executives to develop the tools to assess your people to know their strengths and weaknesses, and feed their strengths and train for their weaknesses. If you know them you can improve them, and they will respond appropriately. I sincerely believe there is no replacement for skillful managers who use technology to better the human interaction.

Employees should embrace an employee engagement approach as well. If it is designed to evaluate strengths and weaknesses for a given role objectively, and more importantly offers a program for improvement that feeds the human side of what managers are paid to do then it can be a win-win. Your future career may depend on the knowledge and mentoring a well designed assessment program will allow management to share with you.