Consistency in customer service is one of those things that is just as basic as it is hard to achieve. For one thing, because every detail matters. For another, because consistency doesn't stand alone. It depends on the overall quality of service, on the right use of technology, on your data infrastructure, on your agents. It all melds into one big picture when your customer engages you’re your customer service. It's not said for nothing that the three C's of customer experience (CX) are consistency, consistency, and consistency.

Let’s get ready to rumble in customer service. Our boxing ring is the telecom industry. The challenger in the red corner: a modern contact center. In the blue corner we have the veteran, the call center. It has prepared itself for this fight through an upgrade in digital transformation. The question is: who wins? The condition for victory is to offer each customer generation the communication channel that suits them best. And the price is a leading position in the saturated telecommunications market.

Enthusiastic experts have no doubt at all that artificial intelligence will prevail. But leaving the rose-colored AI glasses aside and assuming the viewpoint of customers and employees, obstacles beyond the technology itself become evident: Currently, there are three problems preventing the widespread acceptance of artificial intelligence.

Customer self-service is an important tool in customer service and a feature of the self-service culture in our society. Customers wish to troubleshoot pro-actively 24/7 across all communication channels. But what are the characteristics of successful customer self-service? And how can a company profit from this service channel? We point out the important factors.