21 Experience Design in Customer Service starts with

I thought the part of the article about interacting with customer service reps was interesting.

Why in the world would a competent customer service manager force reps to say all the gibberish at the beginning of an inquiry? I know, I know…they do, but why?

(And by the way, whenever I hear “how may I assist you?” as opposed to “How may I help you?” I already figure I’m in for a bad customer service experience.)

Here’s why: because the manager of that department has decided to hire people who have no business doing customer service. They either don’t have the personality or the training to do it, and they’ll never be good at it.

As a result, you have to take away all discretion in what they do when they interact with customers, and no matter how you design the experience, it’s going to fail more often than not.

Instead, user experience starts with good practices in hiring, training, guideline development, and tools. If you don’t have that as a foundation, there’s nothing you can do to make the user experience successful in that area.

posted at 04:26 am on October 12, 2008 by Jim McCarthy

22 Forgetting one's professional perspective creates

I really enjoyed this article and am looking forward to reading Indi Young’s book. In designing UIs for various Internet apps and online experiences I am learning to forget (for as long as possible) my own perspectives and training—usually for all of about 3 or 4 seconds at a time. Only when I forget everything proper about web design do I see it simplistically like average Joe would.

It blows my mind how many assumptions I really do take when designing something. It helps to find an average web user and learn how they do things by just watching them interact with your sites. They can be your best teachers.

posted at 05:02 am on January 15, 2009 by Davis Hammon