Comments on the McKinsey “The Evolution of Customer Care: AI and the Gen Z effect” article
On 8th July, 2024 McKinsey published a podcase and article titled “The Evolution of Customer Care” with the following header text:
Gen Z’s influence on consumer behavior and employment trends is driving contact center leaders to integrate AI, adapt to market changes, and implement holistic strategies for customer care.
The article can be found on the McKinsey site, for free, and I share the link I used though I don’t know if this link remains active or not.
Here are some excerpts from the article that I found particularly interesting along with my own thoughts.
The more things change the more they stay the same
One of the Partners in the Evolution of Customer Care article shared:
“Contact center leaders face unprecedented pressure in various forms: operational pressure to be efficient and reduce costs, enhance the customer experience, manage employees in increasingly complex environments, and expand the contact center’s role to include more advisory or consultative selling to build loyalty.”
I think this observation could have been written in 2022, 2015, 2009 or even 2002.
When you read the ‘unprecedented’ forms of pressure you realize that they haven’t changed very much. It’s that they manifest differently.
For example, a ‘complex environment’ in 2007 might have included email but in 2024 it also includes chat and social.
And I’d add that by the time you’re a leader and you’ve been through the process of adding a new channel of communication, you learn what’s involved with adding a new channel. And carry that know-how forward.
Now on to an observation on sales or ‘selling’. I don’t think that’s a new or unprecedented pressure.
At Heartland Music where I was VP, Call Center & Distribution Operations in the 90s, we designed and implemented an extensive upselling and cross-selling program in 1996.
If you bought Dolly Parton you might also like Loretta Lynn.
And when I began teaching Contact Centers professionally in the early 2000s our ‘Sell the Upsell’ training course was one of our most popular. For some Centers, sales was and remains a natural part of the Customer conversation – given that it’s done at the right time and in the right way.
This isn’t at all a knock to the calibre of the article. There’s some great stuff in this article and I share my favorite excerpts in this post.
It’s just always interesting to see a description of a Contact Center today that reads almost word for word like a headline from 20 years ago.
Now on with the excerpts!
Phone calls – “Our research revealed some surprising findings about Gen Z’s communication preferences with companies.”
McKinsey writes:
“Our research revealed some surprising findings about Gen Z’s communication preferences with companies. Contrary to what might be expected, their behavior isn’t drastically different from millennials, Gen X, or even boomers.
When facing an unsolvable problem, about 70 percent of Gen Z individuals prefer to make a phone call, a share similar to older generations.”
Email – “Our research also touched on email preferences across different Customer segments.”
McKinsey writes:
“Surprisingly, about 70 percent of customers still prefer using email to resolve issues, despite its decreasing popularity among organizational leaders.
Leaders often consider email a challenging channel to manage because it’s hard to track and measure compared with phone or chat interactions.
This creates a disconnect, as customers appreciate the asynchronous nature of email—it allows them to send a message at their convenience, while someone else works on the issue later.
This discrepancy poses challenges for organizations as they plan future communication strategies.”
Now and then I’ve seen a ‘think-tank’ publish that ‘Email is dead!’. Without any data to back up the drama.
Sure, I bet there are industries & organizations out there that don’t receive much email. Or even just switch off the receipt of email as a channel which is of course a business decision.
But what struck me most from this particular excerpt was this – “…it allows them to send a message at their convenience, while someone else works on the issue..”
Just this past week my husband sent an email to our local Doctor asking that certain forms or prescriptions be ready for us to pick up when we stop by their office the following week.
We also emailed our housekeeper, who has a key to the house, to let them know that we’d be away and what particular tasks we’d like to be taken care of while we were gone.
Now stop and think about your own Customers. What kinds of requests might they make where they would prefer not to be involved in the ‘work’ itself.
Service – “Gen Z individuals in premium segments expect high levels of service…”
McKinsey writes:
“Additionally, our work in financial services highlighted another unique aspect of Gen Z, especially in the premium segments.
Unlike millennials, Gen Z individuals in these segments expect high levels of service, akin to what baby boomers expect. They view phone service as a justified expectation for the fees they pay, demanding quality assistance and a positive experience as part of their service package.
This insight is crucial for businesses aiming to cater to this demographic effectively.
“Leadership in this area really requires courage.”
McKinsey writes:
“Leadership in this area really requires courage.
I’m often underwhelmed when we are asked, “Hey, do you have a North Star vision? What do you want out of your customer care, your servicing function?”
The answers are often very incremental: “I’d love to see a 5 percent improvement in this. I’d like our budgets to be down, our handle times to go down, and our customer satisfaction score to go up slightly.”
We need to think bolder than that. Being a courageous leader means having a plan and setting an aspiration that is difficult and makes people uncomfortable, and then seeing it through.”
I nodded my head constantly as I read that. Because we do need to be bolder in the industry.
And I have a belief around one driver of why McKinsey hears Customer Care leadership talk about incremental goals (I want to see CSAT go up, I want to see AHT go down).
As compared to setting a bolder aspiration and plan.
People don’t go to school for this stuff.
Unlike finance, law or marketing, which have university degrees and courses that prepare people to operate a high levels, most ‘Customer people’ end up learning on the job.
Learning an industry this way can be hit or miss, and it depends heavily on the calibre of the organizational leadership team. And their willingness to invest in the development of their people.
As McKinsey points out in their article, coming up from the Agent level creates great People Managers. While at the same time, more needs to be done to help these folks build up their strategic thinking capabilities.
Thank you for reading!
I help and inspire people around the world through transformative training in Contact Centers, Customer Service and Customer Experience.
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Daniel Ord
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