Customer service patterns in HUS Assistive Device Center - Content analysis of customer contacts to provide a foundation for future digital service solutions

Abstract

With the world population aging, the need for assistive device services is increasing, and the effectiveness of assistive device services is of increasing importance. This thesis aimed to examine customer service patterns in Finnish public assistive device services by determining the most common questions that customers ask assistive device services, the most common answers that assistive device services give their customers, and how the most common questions usually are answered. Between 18.8 and 18.10.2022, the customer service employees in HUS Assistive Device Center collected data about customer questions and the answers to these questions. Customer questions were collected separately by two employees in the assessment customer service and by one employee in the maintenance customer ser-vice. The questions and answers from both units were sorted into question phrases and answer phrases. These phrases were analyzed using content analysis methods to reveal the most common questions and how the most common questions are answered. All question phrases were then sorted into broad categories to get a picture of the distribution of the entire data set. The results indicate that the number of customer contacts varies over time. Customer service employees in as-sistive device services spend a considerable amount of working time and resources redirecting misdirected cus-tomer contacts. Certain customer questions are consequently answered. and could possibly be automated, freeing up the employees to focus on the contacts demanding human interaction. More research and development of customer service in assistive device services is still needed. There could be applications for digital customer service solutions in assistive device services, but they require systematic re-search and testing. This thesis could hopefully provide a basis for training a digital customer service tool or for otherwise developing the customer service in assistive device services.