GetHuman core principles for better customer care

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Throughout the development process for the gethuman standard, several core principles continually surfaced. It is essential that compliant organizations embrace these principles and build on them to best achieve the Standards. Core principles include:

• Humans first - In cases where a human is available, a human should quickly answer the call and determine the caller's need. If appropriate, the human can offer a self-service option to accomplish tasks and thereby merely act as a natural language interface to the system's Main Menu. Callers who prefer to use automation will elect to do so. Those requiring or otherwise preferring human assistance will have it.

• Make it easy - The system should be so easy, convenient and efficient to use that people will willingly choose to use it. As a rule of thumb, such systems should permit the user to accomplish tasks faster than by interaction with a human.

• Efficient prompts - No prompt content should be included unless it improves efficiency of task completion for the user. "Legalese" should not be included unless it is absolutely required by law. Cliché phrases, which have become meaningless to consumers due to overuse and lack of trust of phone systems, should be avoided. Examples include: "Your call is important to us." "Please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed." "You can access our website to answer most questions."

• Systems are not humans - Automated systems that try to sound human can be patronizing to consumers. When a consumer calls with a serious issue, they do not want to be greeted by overly friendly and cheery personas. Avoid using personas such as these that will annoy callers.

• Listen to your customers - Regularly survey users on call quality. Respond to frequently heard complaints in a public, visible forum, indicating what you are changing to address the frustration. Organizations should use this data to trend improvement over time, to bonus call center executives, to impact support representatives' compensation and training, and to benchmark against the industry.

• Logical flow - Self-service applications should have logical flow. For example, it is unacceptable to obtain a caller's account number, and then ask if he/she would like to open an account.