March 25, 2015
It’s a nagging feeling that most contact center managers have but are hesitant to voice: namely, that if their staff makes even one mistake, the customer will leave and never come back. Now, new survey results show that this may in fact be the case.
Research by inContact, a leading provider of cloud-based contact center software and contact center agent optimization tools, showed that 86 percent of those surveyed would be very likely to switch to another company in the future after a poor customer service experience.
The study was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of inContact from January 29 to February 2 among 2,028 U.S. adults aged 18 and older. And the numbers speak for themselves: When asked about online or phone purchases of more than $25 in the last six months, consumers say they still frequently interact with company service representatives. According to the findings, 43 percent of U.S. adults who made at least one online purchase of over $25 in the last six months had interacted directly with a company representative at least once, with an average of two interactions. When purchasing by phone, 84 percent of buyers were in contact with a company representative an average of five times during that period.
“We set out to understand how shoppers interact with companies when they are making purchases online or by phone,” said Paul Jarman, CEO of inContact. “Consumers still frequently turn to agent-assisted channels in addition to using self-service options during different stages of the purchase cycle, which makes the contact center a vital link to the customer experience when it matters most—when they are buying.”
The study also found that today’s consumers expect a number of channels to be readily accessible to them. In order of importance to them, followed by the percentages of respondents who agreed, the agent-supported channels include email (93 percent); 1-800 numbers to live representatives (81 percent); online chat (67 percent); apps for mobile devices (50 percent); SMS/text messages (46 percent); social networking sites (39 percent); and online video chat (32 percent).
“Consumers expect a personalized, omni-channel customer journey that includes continuity of agent service and a choice of channels for follow-up communications,” inContact said in a statement regarding the results. “A major goal of the study was to gauge consumer demand for personalized and omni-channel experiences when interacting with service representatives.”
It looks like they hit their target. Now it’s up to call center managers to heed the obvious warning signs.
