A few more or less random observations on the call and contact center space that has come across my desk in the past few days;
-According to Accenture 68% of respondents to a recent survey reported that they had moved their business to new companies as a result of poor service received at the incumbent firm. This is up from 59% last year. This is even a higher percentage than moved due to price (68% to 53%), in the US in particular this trend was even more pronounced with 73% switching providers due to poor service, compared with 47% who switched based on price!
There is a cost to these defections with half of the respondents reporting moving $4,000 worth of business to new providers.
-33% of consumers said their service expectations were higher this year than they were 12 months earlier, 50% said their expectations were higher than they were 5 years.
-20% said they would leave a company immediately over poor service versus 13% in last years survey.
- Embarq the telecommunications company spun off from Sprint/Nextel has announced that they have replaced their IVR with live agents, due to customer dissatisfaction with automated service. In addition these call are answered domestically.
It looks like it is finally beginning to dawn on companies that superior service can be not only a differentiator, but also one of, if not the primary driver of customer loyalty.
Colin
Showing posts with label IVR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IVR. Show all posts
Friday, November 21, 2008
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Resolution- Service that Doesn't Suck
OK, so I am a couple of days late...but this thought keeps rattling around inside my head. What if senior executives, CEO's and everyone associated with delivering service to their customers made the resolution above? What a wonderful world it would be.
No more " please listen to our complete menu as the options have changed", as we spend 25 minutes in IVR hell. No more managing to an Average Handle Time (AHT) in the mistaken belief that this will actually make the call center more efficient. The customers will just spread their service request over two highly dissatisfying calls instead of one. No more"your call is important to us please hold", which as we all know is the textbook definition of bullshit (saying one thing while knowing it is not correct) or neurotic (wanting the world to be as you think it should be rather than as it is).
What if senior managers were accountable to their customers 'en mass' rather than individually. what would this new world order be like? managers would no longer view customer churn and defections as simply a part of the game. They would realize that each and every thread that exists between a customer and a company can either bind them more closely together or pull them apart (this of course is the essence of true Customer Relationship Management (CRM)). Would we see organizations working diligently to ensure that they never interacted with their own customer (self-service)? I doubt it.
If every senior manager made this resolution we would begin to see organizations that realize that good service doesn't have top cost more than poor service, that aligned organizations develop a continuity that rises above 'bullshit' and that despite popular opinion to the contrary a customer should be able to "confuse sell with install" and not suffer dire consequences.
Of course the majority of resolutions are not kept, by anyone, so our senior managers may well also be excused. But what if one company embraced this approach and saw the improvements in customer retention, life time value, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, revenues, profits and stock price...do you then think we would see other follow?
Then the challenge to us to help our company deliver 'Service that Doesn't Suck' , now this isn't as compelling a rallying cry as "remember the Alamo" or "ask not what your country can do for you", but imagine if we succeed. Good Luck and have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
No more " please listen to our complete menu as the options have changed", as we spend 25 minutes in IVR hell. No more managing to an Average Handle Time (AHT) in the mistaken belief that this will actually make the call center more efficient. The customers will just spread their service request over two highly dissatisfying calls instead of one. No more"your call is important to us please hold", which as we all know is the textbook definition of bullshit (saying one thing while knowing it is not correct) or neurotic (wanting the world to be as you think it should be rather than as it is).
What if senior managers were accountable to their customers 'en mass' rather than individually. what would this new world order be like? managers would no longer view customer churn and defections as simply a part of the game. They would realize that each and every thread that exists between a customer and a company can either bind them more closely together or pull them apart (this of course is the essence of true Customer Relationship Management (CRM)). Would we see organizations working diligently to ensure that they never interacted with their own customer (self-service)? I doubt it.
If every senior manager made this resolution we would begin to see organizations that realize that good service doesn't have top cost more than poor service, that aligned organizations develop a continuity that rises above 'bullshit' and that despite popular opinion to the contrary a customer should be able to "confuse sell with install" and not suffer dire consequences.
Of course the majority of resolutions are not kept, by anyone, so our senior managers may well also be excused. But what if one company embraced this approach and saw the improvements in customer retention, life time value, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, revenues, profits and stock price...do you then think we would see other follow?
Then the challenge to us to help our company deliver 'Service that Doesn't Suck' , now this isn't as compelling a rallying cry as "remember the Alamo" or "ask not what your country can do for you", but imagine if we succeed. Good Luck and have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
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