In the First Industrial Revolution, craftsmen and their apprentices worked on entire parts that were then hand assembled into a final product. The First Service Revolution came in the 1970’s, as companies centralized service in call centers and customer service representatives (CSRs) handled one call from beginning to end, doing all the data entry while needing to follow the appropriate business rules. As with apprentices of old, training a CSR was a significant investment of time, followed by on-the job mentoring by supervisors, and even then errors were frequent. While some felt call center work was “like a factory,” the requirement to handle entire phone calls on a one to one basis kept call centers firmly stuck in the First Service Revolution era.

“ Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” – Henry Ford

During the second industrial revolution, industrial engineers focused on delivering labor through an assembly line, instead of building entire parts like craftsmen in the first industrial revolution. While the “final product” moved down the production line, many different workers did repetitive tasks that led to a finished product. As automation appeared and improved, some tasks on the line could be done by machinery. Human labor was still used on the assembly line alongside, or sometimes just checking the quality of, automated labor. Against conventional wisdom, the quality of assembly line goods dramatically improved as engineers tweaked and tuned each step to tighter and tighter tolerances. Production exploded and the age of high quality, mass manufactured goods began.

The introduction of interactive voice response systems using touchtone menus and speech recognition software for self-service did not trigger a Second Service Revolution. Call centers remained stuck in First Service Revolution era because of one fatal flaw in all the automation attempts; once any task during the call required a human, the entire call remained with the human. Without the ability to bounce calls back and forth between human labor and automation, voice response designers were forced to try and build entire calls with primitive machinery. The results? Bad calls - long wait times on hold, frustrated customers, and a generation of consumers conditioned to press 0 the moment they hear an IVR answer their call.

Interactions is Driving the Second Service Revolution

The Interactions Service Factory is a Real-Time Service Assembly Line, capable of shifting tasks between different humans and automation. By dividing a call into minor tasks that are handled by different humans as the call moves through time, the Service Factory is the first service operation of the Second Service Revolution era. Automation can now be inserted for just those parts of the calls where it can effectively deliver results. Client business processes are now tested and tuned to tight tolerances and quality explodes. This fundamental reorganization of work creates an economic breakthrough that delivers calls for dimes instead of dollars.

The Real-Time Service Assembly Line^sm is a patent-pending and trade secret breakthrough that delivers labor and automation with the timing and tolerances necessary to deliver consistent results. Scalability of both the labor and the technology is a key strength of the Service Factory methodology. Qualified prospects (under NDA) are invited to visit the factory and see it for themselves – we’ve had dozens of visitors take the on-site tour and everyone comments that while the service sounds revolutionary when hearing it, the real revolution is what is behind it.

Like the Second Industrial Revolution, the Second Service Revolution is delivering a massive leap forward in efficiency and quality. If you haven’t already, take the online tour in The Service Factory^sm.