Selfservice research report

8/14/2019 Selfservice research report

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Contact Centre Realities Volume 1Industry insights for success with self-service

Copyright © 2004 Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Reproduction or disclosure in whole or part is permitted only with the express written consent of Genesys.

A research study of consumer attitudes and how

European Contact Centres are managing self-service



A research study of consumer attitudes and how European Contact Centres are managing self-service

At Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, we understand

how critical customer loyalty has become in sustaining

competitive advantage. Now more than ever, the value of

relationships determines business success. Furthermore, the

nature of relationships between customers and suppliers is

evolving due to emerging technologies.

Increased investment in self-service has created a business environment where

transactions are increasingly automated and human interaction is often rare,

creating unique pressures for building meaningful customer relationships.Despite the challenges presented by increased automation, self-service delivers

the flexibility, accessibility, and choices your customers demand.

To assess how the world’s leading contact centres are addressing today’s

challenges, we have undertaken an industry research study of contact centre

managers, customer service executives, and everyday consumers.

I am pleased to present this comprehensive report on the findings for European

contact centres. It is interesting to note that self-service and multi-channel

customer care ranked as the most important business priorities for contact

centres, just as consumers rated self-service systems to be a critical determinant

of satisfaction.

I hope you’ll take some time to digest the wealth of market intelligence in this

report, compiled from interviews with over 230 European customer service

executives. Their thoughts and ideas provide useful insights in succeeding with

self-service, and we greatly appreciate their involvement. I trust you will find

the results valuable.

Wes Hayden

President & Chief Executive Officer

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc.




Contents

Executive Summary 4

Introduction and scope 6

Profile of respondents 7

Country or region of origin 7

Primary vertical market 7

Contact centre size 7

Consumer profile 8

The importance of self-service 9

Business priority or business imperative? 9

Meeting customer expectations for self-service 12

Customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction 15

What inhibits more use of self-service? 17

Too much self-service? 18

Investing in self-service 19

Automating more 19

Choosing who can self-serve 19

The customer experience 20

Internet self-service 21

Consistency in multi-channel customer care 21

Being accessible in times of need 22

Speech recognition 25

Key drivers for speech 25

Types of speech applications 26

Resistance to speech 26Building a business case 27

Consumer acceptance of speech 27

Results with speech recognition 30

Conclusion 31

Where to go for more information 32



Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc • Contact Centre Realities • Volume 1

Executive Summary

Importance of self-service

• Self-service proved to be a very high priority for the

majority of respondents, with 68% rating it an extremely

high or very high priority

• European contact centre managers demonstrate a

reluctance to encourage self-service as much as their US

counterparts. They are 50% less likely to expect self-

service to be acceptable for their customers

• Yet, across Europe the highest priority for contact centre

executives is enhancing multi-channel customer care and

investing in self-service

• The majority indicated that their self-service strategy

was more about reducing the cost of servicing customers

rather than improving the customer experience. The

opposite was found to be the case in North America

• Executives are increasingly acknowledging that high

quality self-service is an imperative for satisfying and

retaining customers. Self-service is becoming the

number one method for customers to interact with many

organisations

• Broadly speaking that means the quality of self-service

systems and the accessibility of organisations is the new

battleground for market competition

Customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction

• 67% of consumers consider a company’s website a highly

important factor for their satisfaction

• 52% of consumers believe they would be highly likely

to stop using an organisation if they had a frustratingly

difficult to use IVR

• 36% of executives believe the quality of self-service

systems can be the key determinant of whether customers

continue doing business with their organisation

• Executives seem to underestimate customers’ tolerance for call transfers

Customer expectations for self-service

• Consumers prefer the internet for completing most tasks

rather than speaking with the call centre

• 74% of consumers consider speech-enabled IVRs a

satisfactory alternative to 24-hour live agent service

compared to 67% for IVRs

Customer self-service technologies have received a mixed

response in Europe over the past two decades. While manycontact centres have embraced touchtone IVR systems and

internet technologies in order to reduce costs and meet

customer service expectations, many others have resisted

implementing these technologies for fear of a negative

impact on customer satisfaction. Profound cost savings can

be achieved with self-service, and increasingly intelligent

technologies enable the provision of additional services

that can make organisations more accessible to customers,

however some European cultures demonstrate a reluctance

to give up personalised human service.

Meanwhile North American and Australian contact centres

are steaming ahead with more self-service implementations,

with internet and speech-enabled IVRs creating whole new

possibilities for customers to take control of their own service

experience. Given earlier trends in technology adoption it’s

almost inevitable that these technologies will become more

prevalent across Europe.

So how are self-service technologies being used today and

what opportunities exist for customer service executives to

improve customer satisfaction and drive down operational

costs? What opportunities exist with speech recognitiontechnology? And what do consumers think of self-service?

To find out how the world’s leading customer service executives

are meeting these challenges, Genesys commissioned a global

study of contact centre self-service strategies. 640 contact

centre and customer service executives from 20 countries

were interviewed about their self-service systems and

strategies, and more than 1500 consumers were surveyed

about their self-service and contact centre experiences.

Scope

This report presents the key findings from the European

component of this study, with an analysis of 235 telephone

interviews with contact centre and customer service

executives, and 1056 consumer surveys conducted by

telephone and the internet. A global report from this study,

examining the trends and differences between major global

regions is available by request, along with three further

reports analysing the results from North America, Asia-

Pacific, and Australia and New Zealand.




• Consumers aged over 65 are more likely to be unsatisfied

with touchtone IVRs, yet they are far more likely than younger consumers to be satisfied with speech enabled

IVRs

• Men demonstrate a greater preference for speech

recognition systems than women

• 82% of consumers consider it valuable to be able to

request a call back when having problems on the web

• 25% believe it is essential to be able to send an email on

the spot when using a website

• 58% of consumers under 35 years consider text messaging

a valuable way to receive information from suppliers

The customer experience

• With less two-way interaction with customers, supporting

the brand and providing a consistent experience have

become major factors in maintaining customer loyalty

• 47% have had difficulty with websites and have not been

able to get meaningful support or assistance over the

phone

• Executives are increasingly concerned about consistency

of service across interaction channels, and are actively

pursuing solutions inside their organisations• Consumers demonstrated that having to interact with

computers is the least frustrating thing about touchtone

and speech enabled IVRs. It is the frustration of poor

design that most annoys them

Investing in self-service

• At least 68% of organisations are planning to invest

considerably more in self-service

• Of all organisations represented in this study, 67% rated

investment in multi-channel customer care a high or

very-high priority, and 53% rate integrating web & callcentre systems a high priority

Internet self-service

• Most executives are planning further investment in

internet self-service in order to make their organisations

more accessible

• 37% of consumers expect their email to be replied to

within the same day

• 32% of executives have deployed or are considering web

chat• 31% of organisations are using web knowledgebase

systems

Speech

• 21% of organisations have already deployed speech

recognition technology or are developing their first

application

• Of those, 72% have more applications planned or under

consideration, and 75% have seen an increase in customer

satisfaction

• A further 23% of organisations are currently evaluating

the business case

• By the end of 2005, 29% of European and 50% of North

American contact centres will have deployed speech

• 71% of consumers think speech recognition workssatisfactorily or very well and 74% are happy to use it

again

• 56% of consumers prefer speech to touchtone, and 34%

have no preference

Offshore outsourcing

• 14% of organisations are currently using offshore

outsourcing, and 11% are evaluating it. 36% have no plans

to offshore and 35% say they definitely will not

• Those executives who definitely will not offshore cite the

loss of local jobs and lack of local cultural understanding

as the most common reasons

• Offshore outsourcing is explored in more detail in the

global edition of this study which is available by request

Conclusion

• Use of self-service channels will continue to expand and

this will redefine the nature of relationships and the types

of interactions in contact centres

• Organisations will need to develop more reasons to

communicate with customers to maintain regular contactand build a personal relationship

• Those organisations that lead with the most sophisticated

implementations of self-service can secure a competitive

advantage




Introduction and Scope

Self-service technologies have been a great gift to contact

centres and the people responsible for managing them over the past two decades. While customer expectations for service

have steadily risen and markets have become increasingly

competitive, contact centre and customer service executives

have been able to consistently enhance service for customers

while simultaneously reducing costs. A stream of contact

centre technologies has enabled them to deliver increasingly

lower operational costs to boards of management hungry for

opportunities to improve the bottom line.

Doing more-with-less has been enabled by key technologies

like CTI, advanced call-routing, virtual call centres and

workforce management, but probably the most profound

improvements have come from touchtone IVR systems and

internet technologies which have provided unprecedented

opportunities to serve customers at greatly reduced cost, and

make organisations more readily accessible.

But what about the customer experience? With the rise of

these technologies there has been growing concern about

the suitability of self-service technologies to European

culture, and many executives have demonstrated a reluctance

to deploy self-service technologies because of concerns

about dehumanising the relationship with customers. Whilesome have indeed embraced the opportunities that self-

service technologies offer, others have resisted because of the

apparent lack of personalisation. But regardless of how they

feel about the apparent lack of personalisation or otherwise,

almost all contact centre executives have been forced to

embrace self-service to some degree as the rising use of the

internet has created increasing customer expectations.

So what impact have self-service technologies had on

European contact centres? And with an ageing population

being replaced by younger technology-savvy generations,how are contact centre executives approaching self-service

today? What opportunities exist for customer service

executives to improve customer satisfaction and drive down

operational costs? And what strategies and solutions are

proving to be successful?

To find out how the world’s leading customer service executives

are meeting these challenges, Genesys commissioned a global

study of contact centre self-service strategies. In order to

fully investigate the trends in the industry, more than 650

contact centre and customer service executives from 20

countries were interviewed about their self-service systemsand strategies, and more than 1500 consumers were surveyed

about their self-service and contact centre experiences.

This report presents the key findings from the European

component of this study, with an analysis of 235 interviews

with contact centre and customer service executives, and

1056 consumer surveys. A global report examining the trends

and differences between major global regions is available by

request, along with three further reports analysing the results

from North America, Asia-Pacific, and Australia and New

Zealand.




Profile of respondents

The value of this self-service research study is reflected in

the diversity and size of the organisations that participated.

In total 235 contact centre managers and customer service

executives from 14 countries and 19 different industries

were interviewed by telephone in October 2004. Of the

235 interviewed, 4% do not have an IVR in place, and 12%

do not have a functional website. This section profiles the

operations of the respondents.

Country or region of origin

Primary vertical market

Contact centre size

This study covered a wide range of contact centre sizes: from

5 seats at a single site, through to 29,000 seats across 144 sites.

The median size of operations was 200 seats and 2 sites.

Number of physical contact centre sites

Type of customers served

Total number of seats in your contact centres

Finance – Banking

Percentage of respondents

Finance – Services 9%

Finance – Insurance 7%

Telecommunications 8%

Wireless telecommunications 6%

Information technology 7%

Consulting & Business Services 7%

Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals 2%

Call Centre & Business Outsourcing 6%

Retail Trade 6%

Utilities - Energy/Gas/Sewage/Water 5%

Government & Not-for-profit 5%

Manufacturing - Consumer Goods 4%

Manufacturing - Industrial Goods 3%

Media 3%

Consumer services 3%

Transportation & freight 2%

Internet & eBusiness 2%

Travel & Tourism 2%

13%

Benelux countries 39

France 39

Germany & Switzerland 38

Italy 27

Scandinavian countries 20

UK & Ireland 66

Other 6

Number of respondents

5,000 - 29,000 • 5%

1,000 - 3,000 • 17%

400 - 900 • 13%

200 - 399 • 16%

50 - 199 • 28%

5 - 50 • 21%

20+ • 6%

6 - 19 • 12%

2 - 5 • 38%

1 • 44%

Both • 33%

Business • 16%

Consumers • 51%

Europe

Europe

Europe




Consumer profile

In October 2004, 1056 consumers were surveyed primarily

by telephone, with 20% surveyed via the internet. Of those

1056 respondents 171 (16%) said they have never used the

telephone or the internet to make any inquiries or complete

any transactions - with a very high percentage of those

coming from Italy, followed by Germany and Poland.

885 interviews were completed with European residents

of 17 countries who at some time have used telephone or

internet self-service systems to make inquiries or complete

transactions.

Distribution of consumer respondents

Age of consumer respondents

Level of education

Employment Status

66+ • 6%

45-65 • 26%

36-45 • 27%

26-35 • 32%

18-25 • 9%

# of consumer interviews completed

Czech Republic 68

DACH 81

France 73

Italy 121

Poland 105

Russia 41

Scandinavia 96

Spain 89

UK & Ireland 84

Benelux 127

Post-graduatedegree

19%

Under-graduatedegree

26%

Technicaldegree

(Diploma)

33%

High-school

18%

Lower

4%

Self-employed 11%

Part-time employed 11%

Casually employed 3%

Studying 5%

Retired 13%

Unemployed 9%

Full-time employed 48%

Europe

Europe


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Business priority

or business imperative?

The two most fundamental objectives for all contact centre

managers are reducing costs and improving customer

satisfaction. Not surprisingly, respondents to this study said

these were the two key business drivers for investing in self-

service systems.

When asked why self-service was a high priority, 65%

of respondents indicated their self-service strategy was

more about reducing costs rather than meeting customer

expectations and improving their experience. Interestingly,the opposite was found to be the case in North America where

60% of respondents prioritised the customer experience ahead

of cost saving. Couple this with a higher rate of deployment,

and a stronger consumer preference for self-service and we

see that the North American markets appear to demonstrate

greater maturity.

Comparatively between European regions it was interesting

to note the DACH region had the strongest orientation to

cost ahead of the customer experience, while Italy clearly had

the strongest orientation in the opposite direction with more

executives considering their self-service strategy to be more

about the customer experience.

When talking about cost savings, executives most regularly

cited the advantage of improving productivity and reducing

agent numbers; while the improvement to the customer

experience was explained by the ability to make the

organisation more accessible to customers – providing them

with more control, independence and flexibility.

This drive towards accessibility is an interesting trend that is

emerging in contact centres across the globe. Increasingly,industry leaders are citing this as a key priority for their

future plans, and there may be a few reasons for this. First,

it may demonstrate a level of maturity for some contact

centres that find themselves unable to reduce costs any

further than they already have. Second, it may be a reflection

of growing competitiveness in markets, and awareness that

customers are increasingly holding more power. In response

to an environment where customers can more readily obtain

information (on the internet) about their alternatives, more

organisations are realising that the service quality they deliver

to customers is becoming increasingly important to retainand attract them. Being accessible and easy to interact with

are key elements of providing that service quality.

Some respondents also highlighted the key role that touchtone

and speech-enabled IVRs played in assisted service by

delivering callers more quickly and accurately to the most

appropriate agents. Many organisations who explained they

had limited telephony self-service highlighted that they had a

very simple IVR for routing calls.

The relative importance of self-service was borne out by

both the attitudes of customer service executives and theexpectations of consumers.

Executives were asked to rate relative priorities on a scale

of 1 through 5, with the higher number reflecting a higher

priority. It’s interesting to note that while the range of

difference is minimal, comparatively speaking, self-service

is rated as a very significant business priority with 68% of

respondents rating it a high or very-high priority. Only 14%

of respondents rated self-service a low priority.

Enhancing multi-channel customer care rated equally as high

as self-service, possibly reflecting an expectation that multi-

channel customer care is not generally as prevalent in Europe

as it is in North America and Asia-Pacific. Combined with

other findings of this study, it would seem evident that there

is a growing trend to investing more in the internet self-

service capabilities that create multi-channel customer care

issues. This and the related issues will be explored later in

the report.

How much of a priority are these contact centre

issues?

The Importance of Self-Service

Investing in

self-service

Improving sales

effectiveness

Improving agent

satisfaction

Integrating web &

call centre systems

Enhancing multi-

channel customer care

Europe Benelux DACH France Italy Scandi-navian

UK/Ireland

3.9 4.3 3.9 3.6 4.0 4.1 3.6

3.9 4.1 4.0 4.1 3.7 3.5 3.6

3.8 4.2 4.0 3.1 3.4 4.3 3.8

3.7 3.7 3.4 3.7 3.5 3.9 3.7

3.6 3.9 3.3 3.8 3.7 3.6 3.5

Average rating of priority out of 5




Why such a high priority?

Unsurprisingly, the larger the call centre the more likely self-

service is considered the absolute highest priority. In addition

to cost savings and improved customer satisfaction, executives

across the whole spectrum of contact centre operations cited

the same fundamental benefits from self-service:

““It’s a huge priority because of savings onagents and fewer mistakes, but there is also theconvenience factor - many customers want thechoice to serve themselves whenever they like.But then you have to think about how satisfiedcustomers are, and we don’t believe that the

experience of touchtone is great. We’ve investedin speech because it’s more accessible, and lessstructured.”

(Banking - UK)

“On the one side there is the cost effectiveness.On the other hand we want to give our customersthe best possible service with all self-servingmediums right down to SMS. Customer satisfactionwith self-service is very important as it createscustomer loyalty.”

(Telecommunications – Switzerland)

“Self- and assisted-service is hugely importantin both how we manage our client’s customer satisfaction and our overall call-managementstrategy. Our entire business is built aroundblending between traditional inbound andoutbound, outsourced and co-sourced and now liveagents blended fully with automation.”(Call Centre & Business Outsourcing – UK)

“Our highest priority is to give the customer thechance to use any and all channels. It’s importantto grow along with the technology and explore thepossibilities to give the customer what they expect.”

(Banking – Germany)

“Self-service is a high priority because customersare demanding it.”(Telecommunications – Netherlands)

“It is extremely important because the customer is number 1 and we would like to offer them asmuch choice as possible.”

(Financial Services – Belgium)

”

Many respondents highlighted the importance of reducing the

high expense of contact centre agents, which is not surprisinggiven that this usually accounts for 60-65% of operational

budgets. While this was referred to regularly it was interesting

to note that no one referred to channelling the savings made

from self-service into greater investment in more service

capability for customers. In North America this was found

to be a growing trend amongst the most sophisticated contact

centre operations, whereby savings made from self-service are

being channelled into longer call handling times, exploring

customer needs more thoroughly, providing more thorough

information and service to customers, or spending more time

on cross-selling.

In North America there is a stronger trend in the industry to

shift focus from managing the cost of servicing customers, to

managing the quality of the customer experience. It could

be expected that the same trend will become increasingly

evident across Europe in the coming years. And with the

customer experience being a paramount concern, executives

need to consider how to best encourage more use of self-

service and balance it effectively with assisted service. This

issue is explored later in this report.

Why a low priority?

Across Europe 14% of customer service executives rated

self-service a low priority, yet this varied considerably across

regions. Of those who rated self-service a low priority, 75%

were contact centres of less than 150 seats, and manufacturing,

healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance companies were the

most common.

Self-service a low priority

Self-service

a low priority

Europe Benelux DACH France Italy Scandi-navian UK/Ireland

14% 5% 5% 3% 23% 25% 22%



11


Most commonly, respondents who felt self-service was a low

priority typically cited the nature of their business - be itB2B or B2C – and concerns about delivering personalised

service to customers. The common themes expressed by

these contact centre managers were:

““Self-service is a low priority because we’revery customer orientated and we advertise thepersonal relationship.”

(Insurance – Germany)

“We don’t use self-service at all. We believe thatcustomers should be able to talk to people at alltimes.”

(Industrial Manufacturing – Denmark)

“Self-service is very important, because it reduceswaiting times, improves customer service, andkeeps our costs down. But it’s not a priority for usbecause we have so much in place. Customers canalready serve themselves 90% of the time.”

(Telecommunications – Russia)

“We’re actually making money out of inboundcalls, with 1 in 14 service calls ending up in a sale.50% of total sales are from recognising the needs of the customer and making an offer on the spot, so

we’re pulling more calls out of the IVR.”

(Banking – UK)

”Why an imperative?

With so many contact centre executives prioritising self-

service and multi-channel customer care it seems inevitable

that consumers will increasingly be expected to use these

means of interacting with organisations. However the results

from the consumer survey of this study indicate that some

consumers are still reluctant to use this technology. So why

are contact centre managers prioritising self-service?

To understand this trend one must consider the rise of

self-service in North America. As internet usage has risen

in North America so too has the practice of customers

serving themselves, to the point where consumers there

now display a preference for self-service over other means

of completing transactions and inquiries. Subsequently self-

service has become the number one method of interaction

between suppliers and their customers, and customer service

executives have acknowledged that providing high-quality

self-service systems has become an imperative for satisfyingand retaining customers.

In time, the same could be expected to occur in European

countries as the rate of internet usage increases. However

the move to more self-service will rely upon the courage

of contact centre executives to introduce this technology to

their customers. In some instances customers will recognise

they want self-service capabilities, yet in others they will not

know what the advantages of self-service are without being

given the opportunity to try it. Increasing preference for

self-service arises through increasing exposure to quality self-

service: the more you use it, the more you like it. The more

accustomed you are to the speedy responsiveness and control

that self-service offers, the more you expect and demand it to

be available. Before customers decide they prefer self-service

they need to be increasingly exposed to it, and contact centre

executives will need to drive that.

Already we are seeing in parts of Europe that customers

increasingly prefer self-service systems, particularly on the

internet, and the plans of organisations interviewed for this

study reveal that internet self-service is the most common

area planned for investment. Growing internet use will makethis channel the most common way of interacting with many,

but not all, organisations. Customers will grow to prefer this

channel because of its ready availability 24 hours a day, the

ease of use, control and responsiveness.

““Self-service is a growing priority because it’swhat customers now expect.”

(Insurance - Germany)

“With little competitive difference between banksat the moment, if you could differentiate your self-

service then you could possibly take leadership.”

(Banking – UK)




“In financial services we believe there is agrowing and strategic segment that wants to servethemselves; its typically youth and the technology-savvy. We decided to capture their business earlywith a sophisticated natural-language speech system,and this strategic segment is now worth almost athird of our profits. We’re now rated the number one leader in banking with a score twice that of your nearest competitor.”

(Banking - USA)

“Self-service is critical because it is creating theimpression.”

(Retail – UK)

”As a result of growing self-service, interaction with agents

and customer service representatives will become increasingly

rare, and the quality of self-service systems will become a

more significant determinant of customer satisfaction. The

quality of self-service and the accessibility of organisations

will become the new battleground for competition. The

many implications of this are explored later in this document,

but those executives who have recognised this importance

and are prioritising their investments accordingly are those

most likely to maintain customer satisfaction and gain

competitive advantage in the years ahead.

Meeting customer expectations

for self-service

Leading customer service executives who are investing

in more sophisticated self-service are simply delivering

customers what they want. Consumers in this study clearly

indicated a preference for using self-service systems when

asked to choose their preferred method for undertaking

the most common customer service activities. Whilepreferences currently rate highly for the internet, they are yet

to approach the levels seen in North America or Australia,

where consumers far and away prefer the internet over other

channels.

Across the whole European sample, men demonstrated a

stronger preference to internet self-service than did women.

European consumers’ preferred method of service

aside from in-person

Consumers were also asked how often they actually use

the telephone and internet to complete these different

transactions and inquiries and across Europe it was evident

that they don’t use these channels as much as they indicated a

preference to. This could suggest that consumers overestimate

their preference for these channels or, more interestingly, it

could indicate that consumers have a strong preference for

these channels and companies currently aren’t meeting their

expectations and making it as available as they would like.

Consumers actual method of frequently completing

activities

% of respondents who prefer channel

Internet Agent IVR Depends

Banking transactions & inquiries 57% 28% 2% 13%

Paying bills 57% 30% 1% 12%

Making bookings or reservations 47% 35% 2% 16%

Making product inquiries 43% 36% 0% 21%

Buying products or services 30% 40% 0% 30%

44%

38%

36%

43%

23%

% who use channel often or always

Internet Phone

Banking transactions & inquiries

Paying bills

Making bookings or reservations

Making product inquiries

Buying products or services

13%

8%

20%

11%

6%



13


Looking more closely at the preferences for some of these

transactions and inquiries reveals wildly disparate resultsbetween different countries and regions. Clearly Benelux

consumers are the strongest advocates of internet self-service

closely followed by Scandinavians, while Italians are far and

away the least likely users of internet self-service.

Consumers preferred channel for paying bills aside

from in-person

Preferred channel for product inquiries aside from in-

person

Given these preferences it is interesting to compare what

level of internet usage there is for each country and region,(note that those countries marked with an asterisk* will

show above normal internet usage rates because 25-40% of

respondents were surveyed on the internet):

Internet usage by country/region

Method of Internet Access

Looking at only those consumers aged over 45, we find that

across the European sample 32% do not use the internet.

Having established that the internet is the preferred channel

of self-service for many consumers it comes as no surprise

that company websites have become very influential in

determining customer satisfaction. Consumers were asked

how important the quality of an organisation’s website is in

maintaining their satisfaction with that organisation’s service.

Younger consumers rated this more important than did older

consumers.

% who prefer channel

Internet Agent

Benelux 82% 12%

DACH 59% 27%

France 32% 38%

Italy 20% 72%

Scandinavia 79% 14%

UK & Ireland 63% 37%

% who prefer channel

Internet Agent

Benelux 68% 13%

Czech Republic 57% 21%

DACH 40% 37%

France 61% 16%

Italy 20% 44%

Poland 44% 29%

Russia 8% 77%

Scandinavia 37% 49%

Spain 26% 57%

UK & Ireland 37% 57%

% of respondents for each country/region

87%

77%

94%

45%

84%

70%

84%

90%

73%

95%

Benelux* CzechRepublic

DACH* France Italy Poland Russia Scandi-navia*

Spain UK*

Where do you access the internet?

Don't use internet • 17%

Elsewhere • 3%

At work • 10%

At both work & home • 33%

At home • 37%

Europe




Importance of a website in maintaining your

satisfaction

Considering these consumer attitudes to self-service it

would seem evident that high quality self-service systems

have grown to become not merely expected by consumers

but actually demanded. To evaluate how much consumers

value self-service systems, they were asked how likely they

would be to stop using an organisation if an IVR system was

frustratingly difficult to use.

Would you stop using an organisation if their IVR was

frustratingly difficult to use?

Given the importance consumers place on the quality of web

self-service and IVRs it is encouraging that the majority of

customer service executives share that perception. Executives

were asked how significant a determinant self-service systems

are for customer satisfaction. 36% believe the quality of their

self-service systems are a critical determinant of satisfaction

- it could be the key reason customers would choose to

continue or stop doing business with them:

Significance of self-service in delivering customer

satisfaction

With such importance placed on these systems, it's not

surprising that a number of executives highlighted how much

of a priority it is for them to constantly improve the quality

of self-service systems. They spoke of ongoing user-interface

refinement, upgrading IVRs with superior functionality

and some referred to plans to replace touchtone withspeech-enabled IVRs. The importance of this refinement

is highlighted when combining key findings from this study

with the findings of the last Genesys consumer survey in

2003. In that study:

• 85% of consumers stated they would stop doing business

with a company based on a poor call centre experience

• 56% of consumers have stopped doing business with a

company based on a poor call centre experience1

In this study contact centre executives were asked what

percentage of inquiries and transactions could be handled byself-service systems and the average of 44% was below that of

North America and Asia-Pacific. However of all respondents

10% believe that more than 75% of all their transactions and

inquiries could be automated through self-service.

1 p.4. Global Consumer Survey, Genesys June 2003

(http://genesyslab.com/public/browse/)

Completely irrelevant • 3%

Unimportant • 7%

Mildly important • 23%Highly important • 36%

Extremely important • 31%

5%

Not likelyat all

17%

Unlikely

26%

Likely

25%

Highl likely

27%

Very highlylikely

42%

Important

% of customer service executives

3%

Insignificant

19%

Significant

36%

Critical

Europe

Europe

Europe



15


With so much of a customer’s satisfaction being determined

by the quality of self-service systems, it is essential thatorganisations continually evaluate user satisfaction and refine

systems accordingly, otherwise they risk losing customers

because of unsatisfactory service. While self-service systems

offer real benefits in terms of consistency of experience, it

also highlights the need to make sure those interactions are

fine-tuned to provide the most positive experiences.

Executives were asked how user-friendly they felt their

website and IVR systems are and it’s interesting that while

so many recognise the importance of both, about a third

consider their self-service systems to be below par:

How user-friendly is your website?

How user-friendly is your IVR system?

Customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction

In order to understand customer satisfaction more deeply,

consumers were surveyed about their self-service and contact

centre exper iences. To gauge how annoyed they are by

typical contact centre problems, they were asked to rate

their degree of annoyance on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is

extremely annoying and 1 is not annoying at all. Executives

were also asked how they thought consumers would rate

those same experiences. The following table provides

a comparison of average consumer ratings versus how

executives expected consumers to rate these experiences, and

it’s interesting to note the only significant gap is for executivespossibly underestimating how annoyed consumers are by call

transfers.

Degree of annoyance with typical experiences:

consumer attitude vs. executive perception

A previous Genesys research study2 uncovered a similar gap

between the perception of executives and contact centre

agents. In that study, executives significantly underestimated

how much stress agents experienced when dealing with

customers complaining of long hold times and call transfers.

Could it be that some executives are under estimating how

much of an issue call-transfers can be?

This discrepancy could be a cause for concern because

reaching the right person is consistently rated by consumers

as the second most significant frustration with contact centres

after time on hold.

Most executives clearly understand how critical these issues

are, but it seems that some might be underestimating their

importance. A banking executive explained, “Managing

contact centres for customer satisfaction is not a complicated

2 Contact Centre Realities Volume 3 – Managing Agent Satisfaction,

Australia/New Zealand, Genesys July 2003

% of contact centre executives

5%

Excellent

26%

Very good

34%

Good

27%

Average

8%

Poor

% of contact centre executives

Excellent Very good Good Average Poor

6%

26%

37%

23%

8%

average rating - scale 1-5

Consumers ExecutivesTypical frustrations

Waiting on hold for morethan one minute

4.0 4.0

Having to use an IVRwith complicated menus

3.9 4.0

Entering account details and then

being asked for them again by the agent

3.8 4.0

Having to be transferred to anotheragent because the first can’t help you

3.6 3.3

Europe

Europe




16


proposition. What they want is clear: answer my phone call

quickly, don’t put me on hold, resolve my problem quicklyand don’t transfer me.”

Meeting all of these expectations can be improved in contact

centres by applying well designed IVRs to route incoming

calls and process the more routine and mundane calls

through to call completion. Improving these systems impacts

customer satisfaction in two ways. Firstly, it improves the

customer experience by expediting their inquiry. Secondly,

better quality IVRs improve the satisfaction of contact

centre agents; many contact centre managers accept that

happier agents leads to happier customers because of a better

experience in the call. In this study executives were asked

how important the quality of their self-service systems were

in maintaining agent satisfaction and it is evident that the

link is strongly acknowledged. Interestingly French and

Scandinavian executives were most likely to consider this link

critical, while German and Italian executives were most likely

to consider it insignificant.

Importance of self-service systems in maintaining

agent satisfaction

Looking again at the gap for being transferred to another agent,

this may be explained by some of the executives’ suggestions

that the frustration with call transfers might depend on the

nature and complexity of the call. They seemed to feel that

consumers would understand being transferred when they

call with a particularly complex or rare inquiry. But would

they? Or might consumers have unrealistic expectations that

the agent who receives their call should be able to deal with

it. If they do have that expectation, is it a perception that

arises because of the design of IVRs and the use of customer

ID numbers? Could it be an expectation of consumers that

if they have to listen to a range of menu options and levelsand enter a customer ID, then they should get the pay-off of

being put through to the right resource?

Executives understand the limitations of these interactions and

the inability to fully qualify every call as it comes through the

IVR. Touchtone IVR menus can be only so broad and deep

before they become frustratingly difficult to use, and back-

end and agent desktop systems aren’t always easily integrated

to enable screen-pops. However many organisations have

succeeded with both, and as consumers become accustomed

to these levels of service their expectations continue to

rise for all organisations. They’re probably thinking, “If my

airline, my hotel and my bank recognise me so well, why

can’t you?”

An increasing number of organisations are addressing these

issues by deploying speech-enabled IVR gateways that allow

people to simply say what they are calling about and then

be connected to the appropriate agent or self-service system.

And findings in this study seem to indicate that consumers

aren’t necessarily frustrated by self-service systems per se, but

rather are frustrated by poorly designed implementations.

When asked how they would rate using a touchtone IVR,consumers displayed a strong willingness to use these systems

if they were designed for simple ease of use.

Experience of using a touchtone IVR

Looking at different groups of consumers reveals that over-

45s and women tend to be slightly more annoyed by both

complicated and simplified IVR than their counterparts.

Perhaps not surprisingly, 18-25 year olds were the least likely

to be annoyed by either complicated or simplified IVRs,

suggesting that this generation have grown to be accustomed

to these experiences.

-

Insignificant • 14%

Significant • 23%

Important • 44%

Critical • 19%

% of consumers

Complicated

IVR

Simplified

IVR

How annoying?

Extremely annoying 38% 12%

Very annoying 24% 8%

Mildly annoying 22% 37%

Not annoying 16% 43%

Europe



17


17


Causes of annoyance with touchtone IVRs

The difference in ratings between complicated and simplified

IVRs would seem to suggest that consumers appreciate

the value these systems offer to both themselves and the

organisations that use them, but are resistant to complex

and drawn out IVRs. This theory is further supported by

consumer attitudes to using speech-enabled IVRs, which are

typically perceived as being simpler to use.

Of course a key advantage of self-service systems is the ability

for customers to serve themselves 24-hours a day. Consumers

clearly value 24-hour service, but recognise that they can’t

expect all contact centres to be open to them around-the-

clock with agents at call. In this study they were asked how

satisfied they would be to use IVRs instead, and its interesting

to see that speech-enabled IVRs are considerably more

willingly accepted:

Satisfaction with using IVR instead of 24-hour live

agent service

Looking at the differences between age groups, the over-45

group show only a slightly higher level of dissatisfaction when

it comes to using speech-enabled IVRs. All age brackets seem

to be equally receptive to using speech technology, although

18-25 year olds are more likely to be satisfied by it.

Also, in comparison with the global findings of this consumer

study, it is evident that European consumers are equally as

satisfied with and receptive to speech as North American

consumers who have generally been exposed to more

speech-enabled systems because of the higher rate of

adoption there.

What inhibits more use of self-service?

It is evident that consumers have come to accept and evenembrace self-service technologies as a preferred method for

many different types of interactions, and they clearly welcome

the benefits of increased availability and control. Meanwhile

many customer service executives suggest that there are

growing segments of consumers whose strong preference

for self-service interaction has become the key measure by

which to choose a supplier. With this being the case, why are

some organisations investing more in self-service while others

aren’t? What are the inhibitors to deploying and encouraging

more self-service?

While many organisations are indeed investing more in self-

service, just over half of the respondents to this study feel they

are inhibited in some way when it comes to investing in more

self-service. The organisations most likely to see inhibitors to

investing in self-service were smaller organisations who handle

a lower volume of inquiries, and businesses with seemingly

complex or very personal transactions. At the other end

of the spectrum it is generally the larger organisations that

believe there are increasing opportunities to implement more

self-service.

The four key inhibitors most commonly referred to are:

1. The cost of self-service technologies and difficulty building

a business case

2. Concerns about consumer acceptance of self-service

systems

3. Disparate, complex or insufficient technology systems and

databases

4. The complexity of inquiries and transactions

% of consumers

How annoying? Confusion

caused by too

many options

Dealing with a

computer rather

than a human

Time it takes to

listen to options

Extremely annoying 31% 31% 25%

Very annoying 25% 24% 16%

Mildly annoying 29% 25% 26%

Doesn’t matter 15% 20% 33%

% of consumers

Touchtone

IVR

Speech-enabled

IVR

How satisfied

Highly satisfied 14% 17%

Satisfied 49% 50%

Dissatisfied 29% 19%

Highly dissatisfied 4% 7%

Very Highly satisfied 4% 7%




Some comments from executives highlighted the key themes

that were expressed by those who feel they are inhibited:

““The key inhibitors for us are linking thetechnology platforms, the organisational tensionsand conflicts, and the confidence to implementmore.”

(Banking – UK)

“Our main limit lies at the moment in theintegration of all our systems and channels.”(Banking – Finland)

“Part of our overall strategy is to be perceived

by the customers as a solid, professional andheavyweight company and to combine this withself-service is a challenge.”

(Insurance – Denmark)

“The key inhibitors are the technical challenges of integrating new systems with old.”(IT – Finland)

“A good deal of our older clients don’t utilise itlike we would like them to.”

(Insurance – Germany)

”However what one group of people perceive as inhibitors,others see as mere challenges that can be overcome. Concerns

about consumer acceptance would seem to be less relevant

given the growing popularity of self-service systems, and

consumers’ willingness and preference for using them. Some

executives believe that customers are becoming increasingly

conditioned to accept and prefer these systems.

Also, when it comes to the complexity of inquiries and

transactions it is certainly true that some are just far too

complicated and involved to bother trying to automate, but

at the same time it is interesting to note that a number of respondents to this study have been successful in automating

increasingly complex transactions and inquiries.

Interestingly there were many organisations in the same

industries whose attitudes to self-service conflicted – some

suggesting self-service deployment is limited by complexity

of their product or service, while their competitors indicated

they are embracing more technology to automate those same

complex transactions. It would seem that some organisations

could be held back by lagging perceptions of technology

capability and a misunderstanding of consumer attitudes.

Too much self-service?

There were also a number of organisations who felt they

had reached a very high limit to the amount of transactions

they could automate. Some felt that only the most complex

transactions remained, but a few organisations with high

rates of self-service also said they were struggling to identify

anything else they would want to automate, not because of

the complexity but rather because they wanted to retain the

live agent calls. They were concerned that personal contact

with customers could become too rare, and therefore the

opportunities to explore customer needs and cross-sell were

becoming limited. These organisations aren’t planning toimplement more self-service.

““We’ve already automated 80% in self-service, so we’re running out of functionality toadd, and it’s really about marketing it to customerseffectively to get it higher. We’ve adopted astrategy of charging customers small amounts for making changes for them that they could havedone themselves. 30 cents here or 50 cents thereis not a lot, but it’s about conditioning them tounderstand that service from agents costs more andusers should pay. It’s much the same as banks dowith account fees. A more significant challenge for us is identifying which types of calls are the onesthat are most appropriate to deliver to an agent, andit’s not necessarily the calls with inherent value, butpossibly lower value calls where there is a better opportunity to up-sell.”(Wireless Telecoms – Czech Republic)

”Certainly it is true that most organisations have products

and services that might always demand some direct human

interaction, but the growing trend is for seemingly more

complex transactions to be automated through multiple

channels. While some customers are demanding enhanced

self-service capability, others will always demand the human

touch. The challenge is deciding what to automate and

how, and empowering customers with a range of options for

interacting with the organisation.



19


The success of self-service implementations has meant that

at least 68% of organisations are planning to invest in moreof it. However faced with competing priorities and limited

budgets, what opportunities do executives see for self-service?

And what are they planning to invest in?

Opportunities for more self-service begin with the needs and

expectations of consumers. Accordingly some of the leading

large contact centres are taking a fresh approach to research

with their own customer base in order to understand what

kind of service delivery customers are seeking, and to gauge

their likely reactions to different technologies.

Automating more

Executives referred to a growing customer expectation that

if one service or inquiry is provided through one self-service

channel, then they expect it to be provided through others,

and this can create unique and unexpected demands. For

example, for some banks this has meant customers have

started emailing to request funds transfers and payments. Of

course as a highly insecure channel for communication, the

only way banks have been able to provide this capability has

been to provide the infrastructure for secure communications

either across the web or with digital signature technology, and

that was an investment that wasn’t initially expected.

Some organisations are planning to enable all transactions

and inquiries to be completed in all channels, to provide

their customers with the ultimate in availability and choice.

However the majority of respondents plan only to offer some

transactions and inquiries in all channels. Accordingly, the

challenge is to assess and understand not only what types of

activities could be automated, through which channels, and

for whom, but also to understand just how much different

segments will actually need and use different channels. Itcould be terribly unprofitable to automate processes that

are used rarely, by a small minority, unless those processes or

customers happen to be highly profitable.

Another key trend is the growing expectation of consumers

to be able to prepare their own quotes, answer their own

queries, and purchase increasingly complex products and

services. The rise of e-commerce has created pressure for

more of this capability not only on the web, but also through

telephony channels. It is evident that these kind of capabilities

are being offered by a smaller percentage of organisations in

Europe as opposed to North America. Clearly there aremore advanced applications deployed in North America

and European contact centre executives could benefit from

investigating and understanding the exper iences and successes

of more progressive operations.

The implications for technology systems and business

processes can sometimes be profound. Many organisations

find that they simply aren’t equipped to readily link back-

end systems to more sophisticated front-end applications.

However many large organisations have been successful in

doing so. Banks are enabling a full spectrum of transactions

to be completed online and through speech-enabled IVRs;

insurance companies are enabling quotes and policy purchases

to be completed almost entirely without human intervention;

and companies from diverse industries are speech-enabling

self-service to allow customers to update account details,

check balances and request or submit information.

Choosing who can self-serve

In deploying self-service systems an important consideration

is who will demand self-service, who will be open to it and

who will be resistant to it? Another key consideration is

which transactions to automate. 27% of executives believe

that most of their organisations transactions and inquiries

could be completed though self-service, while another 56%

believe many could be initiated through self-service but would

require some human intervention. This is considerably more

conservative than North American contact centres where

40% believe that most transactions could be automated; again

supporting the conclusion that self-service adoption is not as

widespread and advanced in Europe. Different countries and

regions appear to be more open to self-service deployment:

Investing in Self-Service




How many transactions and inquiries could be

automated with self-service?

Across Europe 58% of executives are seeking to drive all or

the vast majority of their customers to use more self-service,

and it is evident that those organisations who are least

interested in doing so typically have very rare contact with

their customers, particularly complex transactions, or veryhigh value transactions.

Which customers will you drive to use more self-

service?

Some customers want more self-service, and some customers

don’t. Some customers prefer a close relationship with

suppliers, while others don’t. In order to meet diverse

expectations and needs, organisations would be well served to

offer as much choice and flexibility as they can afford.

The customer experience

With more customers completing more transactions through

self-service, what does less two-way interaction mean for an

organisation’s relationships with customers? If the majority

of a customer’s contact with the organisation is through self-

service systems, how do you define and reflect the brand,

establish customer loyalty, and develop a valued relationship

with each customer?

Executives believe this demands more consistency in the

total user experience, tighter links between channels, a

stronger brand personality that is reflected in and supported

by different types of interactions, and innovative methods of

communicating more regularly with customers.

With regard to the latter suggestion, a small number of

executives explained they are now focusing on exploring new

opportunities to increase communication with customers

and gradually learn more about them. Self-service reduces

the amount of two-way interaction with customers so some

organisations are now exploring ideas for engaging customers

in brief but regular email discussions where they can pick up

a little more information about the profile of customers each

time and then later use that to sell to them more effectively.

One executive explained how they had introduced more

outbound courtesy calls to existing customers to see if they

needed any assistance and to evaluate their satisfaction, and

they have found it is having a significant impact on customer

retention and is lifting cross-selling rates. And by using call

blending to involve service agents in these outbound calls,

they have also seen an improvement in agent satisfaction.

Other approaches to improving the customer experience

included:

““If we can satisfy the customer in most cases,they will accept the fact that some of their callswill flow into automation. But when they are inthe IVR there is always an escape for them, for example if the speech recognition engine doesnot pick up what was said, they are automaticallyrouted to an agent.”

(Media - Germany)

When self-service doesn’t work, it is usuallynot the technology. It is down to knowing andunderstanding your customer and their capabilities.

We’re careful not to underestimate our customers,and we use regular focus groups to evaluate howwell systems are working.

(IT - Germany)

”

% who believe most or all

transactions could be automated

Benelux UK

24%

DACH

8%

29%

Scandinavia

25%

Italy

28%

France

47%

-

None • 1%

Only the least-profitable • 10%Whichever are happy

to use it • 31%

Everyone except most

profitable/important • 22%

All customers • 36%

Europe

Europe



21


Internet self-service

The dramatic growth in internet use has been a welcome gift

for most customer service executives. The increasing uptake

of the web has probably had the most profound impact on

contact centres since the ‘controversial’ introduction of IVRs,

yet today websites probably generate mixed feelings for

most contact centre managers. For while they have become

the most preferred method for many forms of transactions,

websites are also at the heart of many customer service

issues: disconnects between contact centres and websites,

inconsistent levels of service, technical difficulties, email,

and 24-hour availability, have all generated new issues inthe contact centre. Some of these issues were explored in

interviews with executives.

Plans to deploy account management & transactions

online

It is not surprising to find so many executives prioritising

online account management when considering North

American organisations are twice as likely to already offer this

capability, and given the consumer attitudes to self-service

revealed in this study.

Plans to allow online submission of inquiries

Consistency in multi-channel customer care

Consistency of self-service across channels proved to be a high

priority for many executives with almost half of respondents

actively addressing the issue with initiatives to realign business

processes and departments. This is unsurpr ising given that

enhancing multi-channel customer care rated as the top

priority amongst European executives.

However consumer surveys reveal that service levels for

internet channels still seem to be lagging very far behind

those expected on the telephone. The Genesys Global

Consumer Survey of 2003 revealed that 38% of consumers

who had used email to seek service and called to follow up,

found the contact centre agent had no record of it.3 In this

study 47% of consumers have had a problem on the web and

called the company for help only to find that they had no

idea of what the customer had been doing.

Many customer service executives recognise the growing

problems that are generated by multi-channel customer

care and the lack of integrated systems, and are investing

accordingly.

Already using

19%

High priority

47%

Considering

14%

Not a priority

20%

Already using

26%

High priority

58%

Considering

10%

Not a priority

6%

3 p.7. Global Consumer Survey, Genesys June 2003

(http://genesyslab.com/public/browse/)

Europe

Europe




Degree to which web & telephony systems are linked

Of all organisations represented in this study, 67% rated

investment in multi-channel customer care a high or very

high priority, and 53% rate integrating web & call centre

systems a high prior ity. Running a common platform for

web and voice interactions is seen to offer many benefits.

Shared knowledge bases, customer databases and back-office

functionality provide valuable cost savings. Meanwhile

customers benefit from a more consistent and reliable

experience.

Another key benefit of linking web & contact centre systems is

to provide agents with a comprehensive view of the customer

experience. Many respondents made it clear that they want

agents to have visibility of absolutely all transactions even if

all transaction types are not available in all channels. Yet many

contact centres still aren’t providing agents with complete

visibility of their customer’s IVR experience:

Information passed from IVR to agent when users opt

out

French respondents were significantly more likely to be

passing both the customer ID and the route they tookthough the IVR, while Italy rated significantly lower for this

capability.

Value for customer satisfaction in being able to

present customer ID & IVR route to agent

Being accessible in times of need

With customers and contact centre managers relying on self-

service systems so much, executives recognise that they have

to support the use of self-service by providing an adequate

safety net for when things go wrong. Customer satisfaction

with self-service and their willingness to continue using it

relies on support being readily and easily available when it’s

needed most. This translates to providing easily accessed

methods for communicating directly with the organisation.

An email address should be readily available on the website,

and email should be promptly handled. Contact centre

details should be easy to find and when customers call they

should be able to speak with contact centre agents who are

skilled to support web problems. Lastly, if things go wrong in

an IVR it should be made easy for customers to escape to an

agent. Consumers were asked about related issues.

Degree to which customers value support for web

problems

Completelyunnecessary

UnimportantSomewhatHighly valuableExtremelyvaluable

18%

48%

22%

7%5%

Europe

% of consumers

How valuable Call an agent Request

a call-back

Email on the spot

Essential 25% 19% 18%

Highly valuable 31% 34% 29%

Valuable 29% 31% 35%

Not valuable 12% 12% 15%

Unnecessary 3% 4% 3%

Europe

Use same technology

platform • 16%

Closely matched • 12%

Some similar options • 29%

Not at all • 43%

Europe

Nothing • 22%

Customer ID • 21%

Customer ID &

IVR route • 57%



23


Closer examination of responses to these questions reveals

that the over-45 consumers have higher expectations for support when things go wrong with internet self-service.

Across all three scenarios they rate the value of this support

20% higher than the under-45 consumers.

Consumers were also asked about their experiences of

receiving phone support for problems experienced on the

web. Unfortunately it seems apparent that many organisations

may still be failing to deliver the level of support consumers

are expecting for using these self-service systems. 34% of

consumers have more than once had the experience of

having difficulty with a website and called the contact centre

only to find that the agent has no idea of what they’ve been

doing and has been unable to help them. Unsurpr isingly

51% of them rated this highly annoying.

Email response

With email continually growing in usage by all segments of

the community, this channel presents ongoing challenges for

contact centre executives. As consumers make more use of

internet self-service they are increasingly going to expect

responsive email support. Consumers were asked what their

expectation was for an email response.

Expected response time for email

Live web chat

Given the support that consumers are seeking when using

online systems, it is interesting to examine the plans for

deploying web chat in order to improve support for web

users. Some organisations have expressed doubts about

the need for live web chat and concerns about the cost of

handling web chat sessions, however the experiences of those

organisations that have deployed it reveal interesting results.

Those who have deployed web chat suggest it's “something

every corporate website should have”. An interesting

example was explained by an online computer retailer in the

USA who had concerns about abandoned sales opportunitieson the web. The organisation deployed a small team of 8

web chat agents and soon found each agent was typically

running 5 simultaneous chat sessions with customers. So

successful has web chat been for driving sales performance,

that organisation’s contact centre now has more than two

hundred chat agents who outnumber voice agents by more

than 2:1. A couple of European contact centre managers

shared their experience of web-chat and revealed that they

have found their agents running 3-4 simultaneous sessions

with customers, and that a standalone session can cost about

the same as a live call. Web chat was clearly most prevalentin the UK where 16% of respondents are currently providing

this interaction channel for their customers.

Plans for live web chat

Not a priority • 68%

Considering • 19%

High priority • 8%

Currently using • 5%

Europe

Europe

% of consumers

within 4 dayswithin 2 dayswithin 24 hourssame daywithin 1 hour

11%

26%

49%

11%

3%




Web knowledgebases

Intelligent web knowledgebases are also seen as a valuable

technology for improving web self-service while also

reducing call volumes for contact centres. Well designed web

knowledge bases allow customers to pose natural language

questions and receive a list of intelligent answers. Executives

were asked about their plans for investing in web knowledge

bases, and it is evident that there are increasing levels of

interest in this technology. Web knowledgebases are most

heavily deployed in France, Italy and the UK.

Plans to deploy web knowledge base

Text messaging (SMS)

Another growing channel for customer service is the use

of mobile text messaging to update and communicate with

clients. Consumers were asked how valuable it would be if

organisations were able to send text messages to them about

the status of their account, and it is clear that a growing

segment of customers already know they would value this

service.

Value of receiving account updates by text message

(SMS)

Considering the variation in expectations for channels like

text messaging (SMS) highlights the importance for contactcentre executives to understand the expectations of their own

customer segments and how to best meet them. Leading

contact centres are endeavouring to provide all possible

channels of interaction for customers in order to be accessible

anytime, anywhere. A UK based organisation interviewed for

this study is currently delivering this accessibility by allowing

customers to interact and transact through live agent calls,

the web, touchtone and speech-enabled IVR, web chat, SMS,

WAP, email, fax, mail, set-top box and in-store, and all of these

channels are linked to a single core customer information

system. Leading contact centres are increasingly planning totake their contact centres in this same direction.

% of consumers

Age group Valuable Not valuableHighly valuable

18 – 25 years 38% 24% 38%

26 – 35 years 31% 23% 46%

36 – 45 years 32% 24% 44%

46+ years 22% 12% 66%

Planning not to

implement • 5%

Not considering • 21%

Evaluating • 28%

Currently

implementing • 15%

Currently using • 31%

Europe



25


After the emergence of the internet, e-commerce, and IP

telephony, natural language speech recognition is emergingas the most profound change in contact centres in the last

few years, and the initial evolution of speech is reminiscent of

the early years with IVRs. Back then there were doomsayers

and evangelists about IVR, and there was much conjecture

about the appropriateness of making customers interact with

a computer. Yet we find ourselves today with more than 90%

of contact centres fronted by an IVR system.

Speech recognition technology appears to be rapidly heading

in the same direction. After trailblazing efforts by industry

leaders, speech is now part of the mainstream, and some

organisations are deploying their second or third generation

of speech technology. With speech being such a valuable

technology for self- and assisted-service, this study thoroughly

investigated organisations' experiences and plans with this

booming technology.

Plans for speech recognition

Plans for speech recognition

Clearly the DACH countries and the UK are leading the

implementation of speech, while Italy shows the greatestdisinterest in the technology. Other findings in this study

support a conclusion that DACH countries and the UK

clearly lead the region in employing and encouraging more

self-service and Italy consistently demonstrates a reluctance to

deploy more self-service. The question remains whether this

is more about customer attitudes to self-service or executive

attitudes, and this is explored further below.

Of those organisations that have already deployed speech,

one third implemented it more than two years ago, and

55% have deployed it in the past 12 months. The majority

of organisations who have deployed speech come from

the financial services, information technology and media

industries, however at least one organisation from each of

eight industries included in this study have deployed speech

to their customers.

The larger the contact centre the more likely they are

to have deployed speech, although contact centres of all

sizes, from small to mega, have deployed speech. Of the

organisations currently developing an application, half expect

to deploy within the next 6 months. And of those currently

investigating the business case, 35% expect they will deployspeech in the coming year. Based on these expectations, by

the end of 2005, 29% of European contact centres will have

deployed speech, compared to an expected 50% of North

American contact centres.

Key drivers for speech

Unsurprisingly the key drivers for investing in speech are

to reduce costs and improve the customer experience.

Executives who have already deployed speech provided an

interesting list of key benefits they have seen from their speech deployments:

Flatten menus Profiling customers more easily

Streamline navigation Improve agent satisfaction

Shorten hold time Encourages more frequent contact

Automate more complextransactions

Enable true skills-based routing

Make more transactions available Improved first-call resolution

Easier to use Meet customer expectations

More efficient & accurate callrouting

Reduce contact centre resources

Speech Recognition

Definitelywon't

implement

Notconsidering

Evaluatingbusiness

case

Currentlydevelopingapplication

Deployedinternally

Deployed tocustomers

12%

4%5%

23%

44%

12%

Europe

Deployed ordeveloping

Evaluating Not considering Definitelywon’t implement

DACH 52% 24% 20% 4%

France 9% 30% 55% 6%

Italy 15% 8% 39% 39%

Scandinavia 8% 15% 69% 8%

UK & Ireland 20% 32% 37% 11%

Benelux 15% 15% 61% 9%




Some executives went further to explain the strategic

opportunities that speech can offer, for example:

““ood customer service is the principle thecompany is built on. We sell and market directlyand we use outsourcing for overflows and peaks.Our over-50 customers tend to want a humanvoice, yet they do use email. We don’t want toforce customers to use self-service, and we don’twant to use a touchtone IVR, but we see speech asan opportunity to reduce costs, handle peaks, andimprove the speed and quality of service, and weexpect our customers will be responsive to it.”(Travel & Tourism – UK)

“In financial services we believe there is agrowing and strategic segment that wants to servethemselves; it’s typically youth and the technology-savvy. We decided to capture their business earlywith a sophisticated natural-language speech system,and this strategic segment is now worth almost athird of our profits.”(Banking & Finance - USA)

”Types of speech applications

Almost half of deployed speech applications are using free-speech technology and the majority of the remainder are

currently using directed-dialog applications where users

are directed to a limited range of dialog. 55% of speech

users have automated high-value transactions. Common

applications are requesting information, balances, completing

banking processes, paying bills, and checking status of business

processes.

The most popular applications for speech are delivering

information like checking of account & order status. The

most advanced European speech application disclosed in thisstudy was the ability to place bets, and the most advanced

from North America enables customers to completely apply

for a bank loan using an automated speech system.

Resistance to speech

For those 44% of executives who are currently not considering

speech, the most commonly cited reasons were:

Other technology and business priorities

Lack of budgets for investment

Affordability of the technology

No compelling need to replace current IVR

Waiting until current IVR needs replacement

Inappropriate for senior customer base

Customers want personal interaction

These executives were asked when they expected they will

consider speech:

Currently not considering speech, but will in . . .

And then there are the 12% of executives who definitelywill not invest in speech. The majority of this group are

from small & medium size contact centres and just two

from large size operations. Organisations servicing business

customers are more likely to not be considering speech. The

common reasons expressed for not investing in speech were

its inappropriateness for the customer base and the cost and

ROI of investing in speech.

Respondents who are currently

evaluating business case

24+ months12-24 months7-12 months1-6 months

9%

25%

39%

27%

Europe



27


Building a business case

For the 23% of executives who are currently investigating

the business case for speech, 25% expect their speech IVR

to completely replace their existing touchtone IVR, and

81% expect to automate high-value transactions. The vast

majority of executives indicated they would like to deploy

speech because they know it can be a better experience for

their customers, but some organisations expressed concern

about being able to build a business case for investing in

speech.

““Our main reason was the cost effectiveness.

We are able to automate things like ordering, andwe can deliver 24/7 service without extra agents.We also use it for our “opt-out” line; if a customer wants to terminate an order. It would hurt tohave to put a live agent to take a call that is losingmoney.”

(Media – Germany)

”For some organisations the cost savings alone don’t appear

adequate to justify the immediate investment; however peers

in the same industry have explained how they achieved

their ROI on speech faster than expected. The differencemay be in the approach organisations take to justifying the

investment. Many business cases for speech tend to focus

on updating already deployed self-service IVR applications.

The resulting business case tends to focus on the cost of the

deployment and the costs it will dispense of, but neglects the

increased value that can be generated by speech applications.

Business cases could be improved by exploring the potential

for increased revenue through higher customer satisfaction

and improved customer retention. In building a business

case it seems imperative to consider the value that can be

created for customers and the organisation, not merely thecost savings.

Another key consideration is to explore the new possibilities

for automating transactions and inquiries, for this is often

where the best opportunities exist for a rapid return. The

speech interface allows the automation of complex transactions

and inquiries which touchtone IVRs are otherwise unable

to handle, thus opening up possibilities that haven’t been

thought of before.

Consumer acceptance of speech

In North America speech recognition has matured to a level

where consumer acceptance drives deployment as much as

deployment drives consumer acceptance. In essence most

consumers now prefer speech and willingly use it. So how do

European consumers feel about using speech? First, consider

this table from earlier in the report:

Satisfaction with using IVR instead of 24-hour live

agent service

Only 26% of consumers believe they wouldn’t be satisfied

by a speech enabled IVR in place of 24-hour agent service.

Combine this with other findings from the study and an

interesting pattern emerges.

Consumer use of speech recognition

Those consumers who have used speech recognition systems

were asked how well they thought it works, how happy they

would be to use it again, and were asked what they did and

didn’t like about these systems.

% of consumers

Touchtone

IVR

Speech-enabled

IVR

How satisfied

Highly satisfied 14% 17%

Satisfied 49% 50%

Dissatisfied 29% 19%

Highly dissatisfied 4% 7%

Very Highly satisfied 4% 7%

% consumers who have used speech

Czech Republic 13%

DACH 57%

France 73%

Italy 35%

Poland 86%

Russia 0%

Scandinavia 52%

Spain 63%

UK & Ireland 52%

Benelux 32%




How well do you think speech works?

Willingness to use speech again

Preference for speech over touchtone IVR

When asked what they don’t like about speech, consumers

commonly cited the following:

• Doesn’t understand me

• Having to repeat myself

• Background noise triggers the wrong response

• Don’t like talking to a computer

• Having everything repeated back to me

• Not fast enough

• Options not available

• Being asked redundant questions

% of consumers who have

used a speech application

Definitelywouldn't prefer

No preferencePreferHighly PreferVery highlyprefer

9%

17%

30%

34%

10%

Europe

Consumer segment Very well Satisfactorily Poorly Horribly

Female 20% 48% 25% 7%

Male 22% 52% 17% 9%

18 – 25 years 21% 54% 14% 11%

26 – 35 years 15% 56% 21% 8%

36 – 45 years 25% 49% 18% 8%

46 – 65 years 27% 37% 28% 8%

0%65+ years 30% 60% 10%

Benelux 14% 69% 14% 3%

DACH 31% 41% 24% 5%

France 21% 38% 30% 11%

Italy 26% 48% 17% 9%

Poland 8% 61% 27% 4%


Spain 27% 33% 20% 20%

UK & Ireland 29% 50% 12% 9%

% of consumers who have used speech

Consumer segment Very happy Happy Unhappy Very unhappy

Female 25% 48% 21% 6%

Male 29% 47% 15% 9%

18 – 25 years 34% 43% 17% 6%

26 – 35 years 23% 55% 15% 7%

36 – 45 years 30% 47% 18% 5%

46 – 65 years 23% 40% 24% 13%

0%65+ years 60% 20% 20%

Benelux 14% 69% 14% 3%

DACH 21% 57% 17% 5%

France 21% 43% 21% 15%

Italy 30% 35% 26% 9%

Poland 30% 52% 14% 4%


Spain 35% 37% 12% 16%

UK & Ireland 21% 48% 26% 5%

% of consumers who have used speech



29


How annoying is touchtone IVR on a mobile phone?

How preferable to say numbers instead?

It is interesting to note that many of the issues listed by

consumers can be easily addressed through interface designand system processing ability. However some speech systems

are limited in their ability to process all interactions. Case

in point being the application of speech that was referred

to most often because of its poor performance: telephone

directory assistance. It is evident that users find these systems

unsatisfactory, and they are often the only speech application

people have tried. It seems these applications don’t assist the

industry in encouraging acceptance of speech.

When asked what they like about speech, consumers

commonly cited the following:

• Quick response

• Convenient when you’re doing something else

• Faster than waiting for someone

• Not having to punch in numbers

• Efficient

• Easier navigation

• Great when driving

• Easy escape to a human

• Get to the right person more easily

• Not having to listen to huge menu lists

• Not having to talk to an agent

Those consumers who hadn’t used a speech recognition

system had the technology explained to them and were then

asked whether they would prefer speech or touchtone IVRs.

Their preference toward speech was only slightly lower than

those consumers who have actually used speech systems,

suggesting that new users are likely to be as happy with using

speech as current users.% of consumers

UnimportantNot preferablePreferableHighlypreferable

Extremelypreferable

13%

17%

28%

26%

16%

% of consumers

InsignificantNot annoyingMildly annoyingVery annoyingExtremelyannoying

12%

17%

26%

36%

9%

Europe

Europe




Impact of speech on customer satisfaction?

Plans for more speech applications

““The thing about speech is that it is more

natural to have a conversation. Speech feels likea natural medium because it is a dialogue. It’semotionally more elegant.”(IT – Germany)

”

% of respondents who have already deployed speech

Reducedsatisfaction

Maintainedsame levels

IncreasedImproveddramatically

29%

46%

25%

0%

% of respondents who have already deployed speech

Not consideringmore

Considering moreadvanced applications

More plannedinternally

More plannedfor customers

61%

11% 11%

17%

Results with speech recognition

Organisations that have already deployed speech have been

very pleased with the outcomes they have achieved. A

Banking executive explained how their implementation of

a speech-enabled banking platform has become a strategic

marketing advantage. In addition to capturing a valuable

market segment of tech-savvy consumers, a recent consumer

study of leadership in banking found this organisation at the

peak of the industry with a leadership score twice that of

their nearest competitor.

Many of the respondents suggested they have achieved their

ROI within less than 12 months of deployment.

Has user adoption met your expectations?

Very few organisations have found their expectations for

user adoption haven’t been met and they explained that

their speech engine and user-interface continued to need

refinement as their systems were recording unacceptable

failure rates. But these organisations aren’t disappointed with

their deployments, and interestingly all of them have moreapplications planned or already under development.

Respondents who have already deployed speech

Been a failure • 0%

Fallen below expectations • 17%

Met expectations • 58% Surpassed expectations • 25%

Europe

Europe

Europe



31


The ever increasing expectations of customers are the

fundamental drivers for implementing more self-service.Broadly speaking, customers are demanding and expecting

more availability of information, more accessibility to

organisations, and the freedom to choose when and how

they interact with suppliers. In response more and more

organisations are recognizing that they need to deliver

increased levels of service in order to retain customers and

grow their business.

Self-service systems offer the most cost-effective opportunities

to provide these higher levels of service and availability, and

as customers have become increasingly accustomed to using

them, they have grown to expect and demand sophisticated

self-service systems as part of the complete product or

service offering. Along the way self-service systems are

becoming the most common method of interacting with

many organisations, and becoming a critical determinant of

customer satisfaction.

With these trends set to continue, it is evident that the quality

and availability of self-service will become an increasingly

important competitive distinction. Customers will be won

and lost based on the quality of these self-service systems,

and when it is needed, the availability and quality of personalservice.

Accordingly market leaders are focused on improving the

availability of their organisation and making it as easy as

possible for customers to interact with them. Leaders are

providing the customer with more choice and more control

over their relationship with the organisation, and self-service

channels are valuable enablers for this.

With these drivers self-service has become a business

imperative and it is redefining the nature of relationships

with customers. With more interaction undertaken through

these channels and less personal contact with company

representatives, the opportunities to establish relationships

and sell to customers are changing. In response, companies

need to consider how they can strengthen relationships

that are increasingly based on automated transactions and

communications. They need to consider what this means

for how customers experience the organisation and establish

attachments to the brand.

Leading customer service executives interviewed in this

study believe this demands more consistency in the totaluser experience, tighter links between service channels, a

stronger brand personality that is reflected in and supported

by different types of interactions, and innovative methods of

communicating more regularly with customers.

For self-service channels it means constantly refining and

enhancing how they can serve customers. If customers are

demanding more from their interactions, then organisations

need to look at how they can build more intelligence into

self-service systems, and determine which interactions are

best handled this way and which are best served by a personal

interaction with a customer service representative.

Organisations need to establish a deeper understanding of not

only which interactions are the most valuable, but also which

interactions present the best opportunities for creating value.

This understanding will help them decide which transactions

to automate, and how best to automate them.

And with increased automation there are new challenges in

establishing and strengthening relationships with customers.

At a fundamental level, customers want to be acknowledged

and they want to feel that they are valued. If companies aregoing to rely on more self-service interactions, they need

to consider how they can personalise and humanise those

automated interactions to make them more compelling and

highly-valued experiences.

Some customers want more self-service, and some customers

don’t. Some customers prefer a close relationship with

suppliers, and some customers don’t. Some want more

interaction and communication, and others don’t. The

challenge for customer service executives is how to balance

these different expectations and provide as much choice as

possible, in order to provide lasting satisfaction.

Conclusion



Where to go for More Information

Research Designer & Author:

Gene Blackley

[email protected]

+61.414.888.414

European Genesys offices

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Phone : +32 (0)2 403 12 28

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Germany

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only with the express written consent of Genesys.

Selfservice research report

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