Are we seeing the rise of the ‘super user’ worker?

You buy from your favorite brand. But you can now also help them on the side (hours of your choosing), earning a bit of money and enhancing the experience of other customers. You are the die-hard customer assisting the brand. And that’s exactly what the emerging world of gig for customer experience is all about. 

GigCX (Gig Customer Service) is a flexible model that is quickly gaining momentum. By next year, we could be seeing 10% of the freelance population worldwide comprising gig workers. That’s 78 million people. Although numbers vary on the proportion of global gig worker percentages (Gartner puts this currently at 15-25%), one thing’s for sure - it’s on the up. 

Companies are discovering that brand advocates — or ‘super users’ — can help in a gig model. With an unrivalled built-in knowledge of the product, they are perfectly positioned to support customers. It’s a huge plus in a post-pandemic world. With these super users, brands can bypass training and cost hitches and accelerate talent to full competency. 

But the real showpiece of this model is that, as expert customers themselves, these super users can offer unmatched levels of customer experience - they get what customers are going through. And it’s a fruitful partnership for both the individual and company. Brands can easily dip into a gig crowd of super users — anywhere in the world — on-demand. Gig talent can enjoy scheduling and location flexibility to work when and where they want, and the stats demonstrate this.

Nine out of ten (91%) of the 600 GigCX experts surveyed by Limitless in 2022 said they started to gig because of the flexibility it offers. Additionally, 90% of them said it has improved their lives, while 83% said it’s had a positive effect on their mental well-being.

With some of the top resourcing challenges for CX managers including access to required skills (28%) and increasing costs to hiring and training talent (24%), it presents an astute methodology for brands to adopt. With a recession on the horizon, it’s also a cost-effective model, paying super users based on cases successfully solved and complexity of tickets, not by the hours they work. 

It’s the future of CX, but what are some key principles to integrating gig super users into CX operations?

Unearth the (right) super user  

Where to begin building up your gig crowd? First and foremost, with your customer base. Super users may already be active on social media and forums, handing out tips, thoughts and commentary for fellow users, or they could be enrolled in certain loyalty programs. 

And they could be anyone. From Alabama to Mexico City to London to Tokyo, the spectrum of locations, demographics and lifestyles is endless. So is the pool of talent and skills. Regardless of who they are and where they reside, what really matters is their love for the brand, services and products and a will to help others. 

Being an advocate is only half the package. This passion needs to be matched with the communication skills to guide customers effectively and provide the best customer service. Gig users need to display a cocktail of knowledge and proficiency of the brand, product and services, mixed with interpersonal and communication skills. 

Tool them up for immediate impact 

They’ve got the existing skills and knowledge. Now it’s crucial to ensure they have access to all of the support and information necessary to optimize support for customers. The best way to achieve this is through a platform for gig customer service (The Limitless platform is called the GigCX platform). 

To start, keep it simple and specific to their skillsets. Gig super users can focus on product- and service-oriented interactions, and it can often work well to keep them on tasks that don’t require customers’ personal data or internal systems. As trust in the gig working model grows within your organization, these super users can steadily progress to handle inquiries that require specific data and limited systems access. 

Crucially, the GigCX platform enables a flexible approach. 

Flexibility is the main necessity 

Flexibility is the cornerstone of the gig model - more than half of those surveyed penned it as its top attraction. 

Part of the way the GigCX platform ensures flexibility is through task distribution. Brands establish which tasks the crowd will take on and then give super users in the crowd autonomy to choose. The pool is big enough to redistribute if they decide not to take on certain tasks or even if they abandon a task. This flexibility is built into the platform and allows businesses to leverage valuable customers as super users for customer service. 

The need for forecasting and scheduling is eliminated in the world of GigCX. Instead it’s about ensuring enough motivated super users are engaged. GigCX platform features like notifications help to ensure that response times will be short, completions are high, and customer satisfaction is through the roof.

But this highlights another vital step: connecting people to tech. GigCX super users need the tools to easily and swiftly escalate and transfer tickets in the same manner as other agents on the team. Likewise, teams need to be able to communicate effortlessly with super users and transfer tickets to the most adept resource, whether that be another super user, a chatbot, or a contact center agent.  

It’s a customer-customer world 

The world of GigCX super users presents endless benefits to revolutionizing customer experience. What better way to drive customer experience than by using your own customers? 

Your company can access a wonderfully diverse, highly skilled and passionate super user cohort, ready to deliver its expertise on its own merits. Likewise, these brand advocates pocket their own compensation. 

But processes need to be set up to engineer this change. Gig customer service platforms can coordinate and facilitate the super user network and communication with the CX team. Flexibility means you can access skills when necessary while individuals are motivated to take on tasks when and where it suits them best. 

The best part: 81% of consumers Limitless surveyed said they’d be more likely to buy a product after speaking with a CX gig super user who’s an expert in a company’s product or service. With results like that and the shifting working landscapes, the gig model is set to become a staple in CX strategy. The rise of the ‘super user worker’ is fully in motion.