October 7, 2015
No matter how many tweets or Facebook posts (News – Alert) Even though social media posts and chat windows are available, customers still reach for the phone when they want to contact a company.
That’s the main takeaway from a new report released jointly by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and inContact, a leader in cloud contact centers.
“I am willing to pay more for a product or service with a good reputation for customer service” was just one of the key responses highlighted in the report, “Smarter Service for the Connected Consumer: Delivering Excellence in the Customer Experience at the Contact Center.”
Researchers surveyed some 576 people to help determine how contact centers operate in today's business world and to try to ascertain what contact center leaders believe is critical for future growth.
“Contact center teams usually act with the best of intentions, as agents strive to serve and satisfy customers quickly and efficiently,” wrote Anna Papachristos, summarizing the report for 1to1 Media. “But as evolving customer behaviors and emerging technologies begin to make waves, contact center leaders must reassess their current offerings to ensure that their organizations can weather this perfect storm of change.”
Among the report's findings, broken down by percentage of respondents:
Phone (News – Alert) (97 percent) and email (87 percent) remain the top channels for agent interactions;
- Those in charge believe that 1-800 numbers connecting to live representatives (78 percent), online self-service (70 percent), and email (69 percent) are the most important methods of communication;
- A majority of contact center leaders use customer feedback data (also known as “analytics”) to improve escalation procedures within their organizations (54 percent), while also equipping their contact center managers (76 percent) and agents (64 percent) with real-time key performance metrics.
- Contact centers use interaction data and metrics to identify areas for improving customer satisfaction (45 percent), manage overall agent performance (42 percent), and identify customer trends (39 percent).
Overall, the study found that a majority of consumers (81 percent) prefer assistance from actual representatives when necessary. Speaking to a person rather than pressing buttons allows customers to more clearly explain their issue to the company and find a resolution more quickly.