I assume you mean automated systems, not paying someone to answer emails versus answering the phone.
It comes down to implementation. But don't expect more than a 10% drop overall. And that is if you've done really well. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the primary one is that if you answer every possible issue on the site, it becomes hard to find the right answer. And if you only answer the big ones, you still get all the questions you didn't answer. On top of this, there are many reasons someone needs to talk to a real person. Not the least of which is trying to get a better deal through haggling. People will always want the chance even when a company really and truly doesn't budge from posted prices. There are a few theories out there that could potentially eliminate all standard questions from phone costs. But they all still require the users to: Come to the site, Bother with the system, Be self reliant. That is a lot to ask from your users and only the middle one can be fixed. (By not posting your phone number until they have attempted to use the system) But it comes at the cost of potential business. Until AI gets to the point where it can parse natural language, preferably vocally, customer service is going to need humans on phones. If you aren't a large company, you likely won't save enough by building a system to account for it. Out-of-box solutions often pay for themselves, if only due to their low cost. However, they still require training the system to know what questions to answer. Anyway, that's my two cents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=43839 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
