Cuidado ao tirar os humanos da equação

Há dias apanhei esta frase:

"relationships are not zero sum games"

Bem na linha do que aqui escrevemos há muitos anos acerca do poder da interacção e da co-criação. Por isso, há muito que defendo que o futuro de valor acrescentado passa mais pela interacção do que pela automatização.

Agora, em "The Parts of Customer Service That Should Never Be Automated" encontro:

"the economics of service automation aren’t universally rosy. When a nationwide retail bank introduced online banking, customers who adopted it increased their total transaction volume and began visiting and calling the bank more, increasing costs and decreasing overall profitability. Similar dynamics can be observed in health care. Patients who adopted e-visits, for example, actually began showing up at the doctor’s office twice as often. One explanation for this pattern is that current technology is functionally limited, requiring people to seek out in-person help in addition to using automated services. But as innovation progresses, functional limitations are bound to fall by the wayside.
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Another explanation is that humans are inherently social creatures who get emotional value from seeing and interacting with one another. Research shows that taking away the opportunity for this kind of connection can undermine service performance. In one study, my colleagues and I found that when banking customers used the ATM more and the teller less, their overall level of satisfaction with the bank went down."

Recordo esta opinião:

E o comentário que fiz na altura:

"Quem não aposta no "cheaper" e no "cost", aposta na interacção, aposta na co-criação, aposta noutro mindset... eu diria, "Every visit customers have to make are an opportunity for interaction and co-creation""

E voltando ao texto do artigo:

"the deck is stacked against automation in several important ways:
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1. Service can be emotional; technology cannot.
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Automating sympathy is certainly cheaper than having a human employee comfort the bereaved, but the tradeoff can come across as disingenuous and is unlikely to be sustainable.
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2. We still prefer having people help solve our problems. In many ways, the capacity and computational power of technology far outstrips our own. ... Nevertheless, when we’re looking for creative solutions to service problems, we still seek out other humans. If we get stuck, if there’s ambiguity in the information, or if we need help making a purchase decision, we still opt for a person.
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3. Less work for employees often means more work for customers."