CONSUMER SURVEY 2014 - Enghouse Interactiveinfo.enghouseinteractive.com/rs/syntellect/images... ·...

CONSUMER SURVEY 2014COVERING ALL THE BASES

©2014 Enghouse Interactive www.enghouseinteractive.com

WHY KEEPING EVERY CUSTOMER HAPPY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER...Customer service is even more important to businesses today than it has been in the past.

An organization’s reputation for customer service has always been important, but today that

reputation is arguably a more critical determinant of its success than ever before.

So, businesses clearly need to concentrate their efforts on delivering good customer service.

In doing so, however, they need to be aware that there is a major difference between the service

preferences of the younger and older generations. While they need to make sure they have an

online and self-service strategy in place for the Millennials, they also need to offer the traditional

voice-based communication channels that older customers remain more comfortable with.

Furthermore, in order to deliver the kind of effortless customer service both groups are looking

for, they need to put in place a connected enterprise approach, enabling them to track customers

across all interaction modes, engage with them over the appropriate channels and, where

appropriate, route them through to the individual best-suited to resolve their inquiry.

�ese were among the key outtakes from a recent survey we ran at Enghouse Interactive, polling

the views of more than 2,000 adults.

Take a look through the complete findings.

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Consumer Survey: Covering all the Bases

GREATSERVICE

VERYEFFICIENT

RELEVANTINFORMATION

©2014 Enghouse Interactive

A COMPANY’S REPUTATION IS CRUCIAL

Being able to deliver high-quality customer service is arguably more critical to business success than ever. An action taken as a result of the service customers receive can significantly impact a business’s brand reputation – either positively or negatively.

42% of respondents to the survey said they base their decision to buy from a business solely on that organization’s reputation for customer service.

When you consider all the other factors that might possibly influence that decision, it’s a staggeringly high figure.

And the importance of maintaining this reputation by delivering high-quality service levels at all times is underlined by another finding from the survey.

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When asked, “What actions have you taken as a result of poor customer service?”, 60% of respondents said they would never do business with that brand again.

�e potential for poor customer service to adversely impact an organization’s brand and drive up churn is clear.

Conversely, businesses can optimize the value of their brand by giving customers what they want and getting service right the first time. More than four out of five survey respondents said they would usually tell others about a positive customer experience.

So, while it might seem a truism, there are clear benefits to be gained for businesses that focus their efforts on delivering good customer service. However, achieving this is often easier said than done.

�e survey showed a stark generational divide in consumer likes and dislikes, indicating that businesses today need to adopt a multifaceted approach to service in order to ensure they keep all of their customers happy.


HAVE NEVER DONE BUSINESS WITH A BRAND AGAIN, AS A RESULT OF POOR

CUSTOMER SERVICE

60%

42%OF RESPONDENTS

BASE A DECISION SOLELY ON AN

ORGANIZATION’S REPUTATION


POLARIZED CUSTOMER SERVICE We are entering a new age of customer service, characterized by a stark generational divide in consumer likes and dislikes. �e survey highlights that customer preferences when it comes to engaging with a business or a brand vary widely depending on age. Many businesses are therefore having to provide a kind of polarized customer service and put in place completely different kinds of communication channels to meet the disparate needs of different customer groups.

In the Enghouse Interactive survey, nearly three times the proportion of 16-24 year-olds (46%) as against 55 and overs (16%) claimed that a brand’s ability to engage with them via social media was important to them. Equally, while just 9% of respondents in the 16-24 age bracket said engaging with a brand using online communications was not important to them at all, that figure rises to 41% among the 55+ category.

�e lesson for businesses from the results detailed above is that while they need to have an online strategy in place for generation Y and millennials, they also need to be aware that there are large numbers of older consumers, particularly those 55 and over, for whom online communications are largely seen as irrelevant.

Businesses with customers in this latter category will need to find other modes of communication to engage with them.

Once again, the survey results are confirmation of just how different the interaction needs of older and younger consumers are.

DEATH OF ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL?

If there is one clear conclusion to be drawn from the survey findings, it is that a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works in today’s market.

Businesses need to get themselves ready to deliver a polarized customer service approach to meet the needs of this complex environment. To do that, they need to know their customers well and deliver services that are tailored to their requirements.

If your business model is predominantly online or you’re marketing to a young audience, you’ll want to offer social media engagement and a greater array of online communication tools.

Among 16-24 year-olds, the three most popular methods of engaging with a business or a brand were smartphone, (cited by 25%); self-service via company website (23%) and social media (18%).

If you are mainly engaging with older consumers you should focus on traditional channels. After all, email is way out in front as an engagement method with 52% of the 55 and overs category favoring it, followed in popularity by fixed-line phone, referenced by 15% of this age group.

And if your market is a mixture of both, you’ll need a broad-based solutions offering, encompassing traditional voice-based telephony and the latest online solutions.

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46%OF16-24 YEAR OLDS CLAIM THATA BRAND’S ABILITY TO ENGAGEWITH THEM VIA SOCIAL MEDIA

IS IMPORTANT TO THEM

41% OF 55+ YEAR OLDS SAY ENGAGING

WITH A BRAND USING ONLINECOMMUNICATIONS IS NOT

IMPORTANT TO THEM AT ALL

BRANDXP. LOL

BRANDAWARENESS :)


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DELIVERING TAILORED SOLUTIONS – THE BUSINESS REALITY OF POLARIZED CUSTOMER SERVICE

So, the survey findings highlight not only that different generations of customers have very different preferences when it comes to engaging with business but also that in general, many customers use specific kinds of communication tools for different types of interaction.

Businesses need to be prepared to deliver this kind of multi-faceted customer service. Understanding the need for it is one thing, of course, but organizations also need to act on this understanding by making sure they match their approach to their customers’ needs.

To meet the sophisticated needs of younger tech- savvy customers – Millennials – organizations must deploy solutions that allow customers to self-serve at any time, on any device, in any place. Tools like self-service user forums, searchable knowledge bases, interactive voice and visual response (IVR) and even artificially intelligent robot agents that can chat through a messaging service could all be part of the mix.

Older customers, from the Baby Boomer ranks, want personalized human-to- human customer service. �ese people are looking above all for personal engagement. Whenever they interact with the business, they want to talk to someone who knows them and understands the nature of their inquiry.


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46%

A MULTI-CHANNEL APPROACH – WHY IT IS KEY

�e need for a multi-channel approach to customer service also reflects the fact that customers like to use different communication channels for different kinds of interactions and types of engagement.

Perhaps surprisingly, email was the preferred method of business engagement overall, with nearly half of respondents (46%) referencing it, almost twelve times the proportion citing social media (4%).

Yet, when it came to actions taken as a directresult of poor customer service, a significantlylarger proportion (17%) said they would spreadthe message on social media than via email (11%).

We are increasingly seeing social media beingused as a tool to share experiences, typically bad ones, of customer service, but it’s not being used as much for problem resolution. Email continues to scoremuch more strongly for the latter application.�e reasons are clear. It’s more direct. It offers the advantage of a clear audit trail, with time/date stamp evidence, so consumers can gather all the evidence they need in the event of a protracted dispute.

Self-service is becoming an increasingly popular method of engaging with businesses and brands, particularly among younger, more digitally-savvy consumers. �is was born out by the survey, inwhich it was found to be second only to email asthe preferred method of engaging with a businessor a brand. In all, nearly one in five adults (17%) rated it as their favorite option. It’s clearly well-liked, especially among 16-24 year-olds where it’s the top choice (23%), suggesting its overall popularity is likely to grow over the long-term.

It’s clear, therefore, that organizations today needto provide a multi-channel approach and providea broad range of different communications and interaction options to meet the different preferences of different kinds of customers from self-service to traditional voice calls. In order to take full advantage of this, organizations also need to be able to track customers across all interaction channels.

�is, in turn, enables them to achieve a singular holistic view of each customer – effectively an omni-channel view – and deliver a seamless customer experience to all of them incorporating all of their communication channels.

OF OVERALL SAMPLED SAID IT WAS

THEIR PREFERRED METHOD

OF BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT

USED MORE FOR

SPREADING EXPERIENCES

THAN RESOLVING ISSUES

EMAIL SOCIAL MEDIA

EMAIL.SUPPORT@ENGHOUSE

www


PLAYING INTO THE CONNECTED ENTERPRISE

�at said, while it might be a clearer preference among more mature respondents, the Enghouse survey finds that all groups within the organization, both young and old, actually value being routed through to somebody within the business who has background information about them and under-stands their needs.

In the survey, 35% of respondents said this wasvery important to them and 55% in total said itwas important. Even amongst 16-24 year olds, 52% said it was important and among the 55+ age range, four out of ten respondents said it was very important and a total of 57% saw it as importantin some way.

Despite the current focus on self-service, it is clear that there are, at all ages, a large percentage of all age groups value being able to speak to a real person with information about them at his or her fingertips who can deliver a personalized service tailored to their needs.

�e survey findings highlight the importance of the connected enterprise and the need to route calls through to experts within the business who can quickly and effectively resolve a customers query.

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WHY A FAILURE TO CONNECT CAN RESULT IN DISAFFECTED CUSTOMERS

Effortless customer service has to be a key goal of any customer-facing organization. �e survey indicates that it is when businesses fail to connect customers to the entire business and resolve queries they can become disaffected and frustrated.

Being passed around to multiple agents, none of which can resolve your problem, is by far the biggest irritation that people experience when engaging with a company providing service, cited by 43% of respondents to the survey. It’s a finding that once again highlights the importance of connecting customers to the entire business and more specifically of being able to triage and route customers to the right contact within the business.

�e highest ranked concerns identified by the survey also relate to the theme of having a connected business. Being kept waiting for service or lack of timely response and inability to speak to a live agent were each referenced by 16% of the sample as their most irritating issue when dealing with businesses offering service.


55%

SAID IT WAS IMPORTANT TO:

COMPANY X

GET QUICKLY ROUTED THROUGH TOSOMEBODY WITHIN THE BUSINESSWHO UNDERSTANDS THEIR NEEDS


PUTTING A SOLUTION IN PLACE

Of course, all the above highlights the need for organizations to look at turning themselves into connected enterprises. Achieving this, however, requires the implementation of a flexible and agile solution architecture and putting in place the right processes and procedures to support it.

�e kind of customer contact technology chosenis vitally important if the business wants to provide the optimum caller experience, enabling the customer to have a rich and informative conversation with the person on the other end of the line.

With the help of the latest systems, all of the organization’s frontline staff from customer service agents to helpdesk consultants to receptionists, regardless of where they are positioned within the business, can use real-time presence and calendar information to select the back office contact best placed to engage with the caller and answer their questions. CRM integration can be put in placewith pop ups displaying information about the customer in real-time, enabling customers to be passed more quickly to the person within the organization best disposed to answer their queries and resolve even faster. 07

For larger organizations, in particular, the abilityto create a global directory and view of who is available and best placed to assist the customer is vital. Sitting behind this, organizations need to put in the kind of technologies that truly enable the connected enterprise.

Cloud computing and IP-based networking allow you to engage with the online world while unified communications technologies like Microsoft Lync or Cisco Jabber enable you to connect with key customer-facing staff.

Strong directory and database integration, enables you to know who is available and best placed to support your customers at all times.

Such an approach, when allied to techniques like skills- and task-based routing helps ensure that interactions best suited to a self-service approach can be handled in that way. �e savings enabledby this much lower cost model can then be re-deployed to allow more expensive higher-skilled workers scattered across the business to become part of the customer service effort as,and when, required.


PR & MARKETING

IT SUPPORT

INVOICES & ADMIN

DELIVERIES & LOGISTICS

INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING

CUSTOMER SALES

I NEED TO KNOWDELIVERY DATES?

I HAVE A WEBSITETECHNICAL ISSUE?

I NEED TO QUERYMY INVOICE?

WHEN IS THIS NEWPRODUCT RELEASED?

I LIVE OVERSEAS –CAN I GET DELIVERY?


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The Connected Enterprise – The Perfect Solution to Polarized Customer Service

�e Enghouse Interactive consumer poll highlights that businesses need to be aware that we are living in an age where customer service needs are polarized by age. Older customers still have a strong bias towards traditional communication channels while Millennial digital natives are predictably aligned to using online and self-service channels. So the lesson for businesses is that they need to understand their audience and deliver services tailored to their needs. �ere is a growing perception that businesses should be migrating away from traditional service offerings and moving wholesale to digital. �is is not necessarily the case. If your business is selling the latest advanced computer games, it is an approach that will work, if you are selling ocean cruises, however, you are likely to favor tried and tested communication methods. And if, like many businesses, your audience is broad and encompasses both groups, you’ll need to deliver a multichannel approach with different approaches in place to cater for each and every customer.

In summary, we believe there are four key lessons businesses need to learn from this consumer poll.

Customer service is critical to an organization’s reputation, so organizations need to ensure that their service is of high-quality and that it stands out from the competition.

Businesses need to be aware that customers, especially from the younger generation, are increasingly looking to interact with organizations at a time of their convenience and via self-service options like FAQs on the company website, for example. With this method of interaction likely to become more popular over time, businesses need to take note and make sure they are enabling those customers that want to self-serve to do so whenever and wherever they want.

Self-service is important today and is likely to become increasingly so in the future as today’s Millennials mature and are replaced by even more tech-savvy younger generations. However, the survey also highlights the importance of the connected enterprise in meeting the need of customers of all ranges to be routed through to somebody within the business who understands their needs and can resolve their query within the first interaction.

Perhaps most markedly, the findings highlight the significant differences in the communication preferences of older and younger customers. Behind that, it demonstrates the need for businesses to deliver a multichannel approach to cater for all customer types, supported by the ability to deliver an omni-channel experience by obtaining a holistic view of each and every customer and delivering seamless customer service across each and every interaction channel.

Businesses need to ensure that they understand their audience; that they know their customers.�e age of one-size-fits-all customer service is effectively over. And in this new age of polarized customer service, businesses need to deliver multi-faceted customer service that meets all of their customers’ needs.



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