Gartner predicts that by 2026, three-quarters of customers who call a customer service department will do so out of loneliness, not because they have a customer service problem. Gartner argues that lone callers will impact how customer service organizations drive their customers toward self-service. Gartner also foresees an increasing impact of lone callers on the well-being of contact center employees.

According to Emily Potsky, senior research principal Gartner Customer Service & Support, lone customers who want to fulfill their interpersonal needs through customer service will not use self-service. Companies looking to answer the question of why customers bypass or ignore self-service should pay more attention to consumer loneliness.

Longer call duration

Gartner also expects that contact center agents will more often have to deal with longer conversations that are more difficult to manage. For employees, it is an extra challenge to deal with emotional customers such as lonely callers, according to Gartner. Determining the boundary – what you allow and what you do not allow as an employee – will become more complicated. An increase in customers with emotional needs can negatively impact employee well-being and further exacerbate employee turnover. Gartner even predicts that by 2024, that emotional tension will be the number one reason people leave the organization.

Solutions

Gartner also has an idea about the solutions. For example, the analysts suggest using speech analysis and sentiment analysis to identify customers who call because they are lonely. The research firm also advocates coaching employees: teach them how to identify lone callers who use the service interaction for emotional support and socialization instead of solving real problems and give employees the skills to properly manage conversations with these customers and close empathetically. Perhaps one of Gartner's most important tips is to educate employees about the necessary mental health or mental health benefits suicide prevention drugs to guide customers to the right support. Finally, Gartner recommends incorporating these trends into internal analytics about self-service usage.

You can talk about suicide at the national helpline 113 Suicide Prevention. Via telephone number 113 or 0800-0113 or via www.113.nl.

Customer Experience, Human Resources