BY DANIEL O’ SULLIVAN, GYST TECHNOLOGIES

ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY ADOBE STOCK

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m from Ireland. And growing up there, I remember many great times hitchhiking around the countryside as I came into my late teens. Occasionally, my friends and I got lost and had to stop and ask a local for directions.

I don’ t know what it’ s like today, but back then, you’ d get something like“ Well, go on down the road here for a bit, until you see a big barn near a house, then go to your left and go on down another bit, and you’ ll be heading towards town."

This was all fine, until you got to the barn. Then you had to wonder if the house was close to it. And what exactly is a“ bit down the road”? And is“ another bit” the same distance as the first bit?

You see, this all makes sense to a local. And it also made sense to a lot( though not all) of my fellow Irish natives at the time. Again, this might not be true even to an Irish local today. It may even frustrate them; it would most certainly have that effect on the out-of-towners.

Now I live in America. And being a science guy, if I’ m asking someone what’ s the best way to get to an unfamiliar location at a given time of day( I’ ve been led astray by my map apps enough to still feel the need to do this), I want strictly lefts and rights with distances in-between.

That means I don’ t want generalizations, and I certainly don’ t want to have to avert my attention to look for obscure and ambiguous landmarks while

I’ m in four lanes of fast-moving rushhour traffic.

GIVING DIRECTIONS TO CUSTOMERS

So, this brings us to an important aspect of modern-day contact centers and the technologies we use to support them. For your customers, working their way through your voice, mobile, and web services to find what they are looking for is cognitively a lot like asking for directions. You know where you want to go, but you are at the mercy of another individual to get you there.

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