The major investments that organisations have made in web and email customer services in the last five years have so far failed to improve customer satisfaction, largely because they are not tailoring their customer service strategies closely enough to consumer needs. Although 34 per cent of queries are now made via web and email channels, the telephone remains the most popular communications method (used for 60 per cent of queries). These findings were revealed in a new survey carried out to 2,000 UK customers by research consultancy Teleconomy on behalf of Cable & Wireless and Vertex.
The survey confirmed that poor service can have a huge impact on customer loyalty. It found, for example, that 72 per cent of first-time customers who experienced poor customer service would not use the organisation concerned again.
When researchers asked consumers to rate their experiences of interacting with organisations, they found that only 51 per cent of email correspondents cited their experience as positive, with 24 per cent claiming a negative experience.
The introduction of web and email has served to raise consumer expectations of customer service since Cable & Wireless last commissioned a survey of the industry in 1998. Some 32 per cent of people now expect excellent customer service compared with 24 per cent in 1998. As a result, while customer satisfaction with telephone advisors remains high at 76 per cent, overall consumer satisfaction has declined. Twelve per cent of respondents rated their customer service experiences as poor, versus 7 per cent in 1998.
Problems arising from the ways in which organisations are using technology, such as the difficulty in resolving an issue quickly by email, are behind the rising levels of dissatisfaction.
Many organisations have thrown money at e-based customer contact solutions in the hope that such investment would drive efficiency and cost savings in the future. The truth is that not nearly enough thought has gone into why and how a customer wants to interact with a business, and through which channel, Teleconomys Paul Hudson analysed.
The survey found that customers choose different contact methods depending on the context of their enquiry and their frame of mind. If people have a real problem, they dont appreciate being stuck in a call filtering system. Some 75 per cent of problem enquirers choose to use the telephone and telephone advisors to have access to appropriate knowledge and respond in a caring manner.
But for other needs, such as checking out information or repeat transactions, automated phone systems can be perfect: 46 per cent of people thought that automated phone systems actively aided their repeat transactions. People are also increasingly choosing the web for repeat transactions and bookings (23 and 26 per cent respectively) and 28 per cent of complaint enquirers choose email.
Financial services remains the best performing sector with 83 per cent of consumers claiming to be very satisfied. The utilities sector has achieved the biggest reduction in dissatisfied customers. Ten per cent of customers were very dissatisfied compared with 19 per cent in 1998.
Filipe Samora
2003-07-04
Em Foco – Projecto