There’s a new trend in customer service – AI-assistance.  Companies like Walgreens and AT&T are using your personal data to match you with the right customer services representative.  And they are using something called the “break point” to walk right up to, but not over, the line where the customer will leave . They do this through  analysis of tone and pace of speech.  It’s at this point, and only at this point, they will offer the price package or customer service fix to bring the customer back on.  Maximize revenue, minimize cost.

My first thought?  This is the worst marketing idea ever.  Someone went into a meeting at these companies and said “I looked up the word “service” in the dictionary and it turns out there’s a definition related to livestock…”.  Taking us right to the edge of fury, then trying to make things OK afterward, isn’t what a company should do.  That is why we have politicians.  (Rim shot.)

This speaks to a fundamental disagreement about where customer value come from.  This approach is an extractive one –sink a well into our customers’ pocket and take everything you can.  The customer feels well and truly fracked.

Others look for a partnership that maximizes value for both parties.  It’s the difference between losing your money after the Penn and Teller show while drinking free drinks at a casino and being mugged in an alley.

If you are wondering which approach we counsel, people go back to casinos.

So my various reactions — ire, dander, hackles, dukes – went up.  I don’t want the new normal to be barely tolerating all of my interactions.  Then I realized:

Much of customer service is like this.  They just didn’t know the break point before.

In this telling of the customer service story, there’s a silver lining: they draw you back from the brink.

As nonprofits, can we say we are doing any better?

Here’s an unretouched comment from a nonprofit donor:

DO NOT SEND ME ANYTHING IN THE MAIL.  PLEASE DO NOT.  EVERY SINGLE TIME I DONATE I ALWAYS GET MAILERS.  STOPPPPP!!!

All caps and the sheer number of Ps and exclamation points means I’m thinking you don’t need an AI to figure out this person is near, at, or passed their break point.

If you are not collecting feedback, this person is having these feelings without telling you.  They pass their break point and they are lumped into the mass of lapsed donors who lapsed for who-knows-what-reason.  In fact, if you aren’t collecting feedback, you are probably mailing this person who said not to send them anything in the mail to try to get them back.

One you are collecting feedback, the next step is to make sure you are asking the people who aren’t often covered.  If you are asking for thoughts post-donation, for example, you aren’t getting the people who hit their break point during the donation process.  You’ll learn what to do to avoid inconveniences for those who do complete the form, but not find the things that are fatal.  This is called survivorship bias when you only draw data from success stories.

If you have a robust listening program, you can now dedicate yourself to pulling people back from the brink.  The Canadian Red Cross modeled which of their F2F donors was most likely to lapse, then called them to recapture.  The calling program has over a 100% ROI.  You can see what they asked, how they asked it, and how they set up the program here:

Bottom line: this new world of bringing customers to the brink of abandoning sets a low bar for customer service.  But we want to be focused on jumping over it rather than limbo-ing under.

Nick