In order to be successful today, a company needs to be focused on providing a positive customer experience. While many factors contribute to the overall customer experience, one of the top contributors is customer service. A negative customer service experience can affect the overall reputation of a company and its bottom line negatively while a positive customer service experience can do the opposite, and increase brand loyalty.
Here are some eye-opening statistics that companies need to consider as they develop their customer service/customer experience initiatives:
• 76% of consumers say they view customer service as the true test of how much a company values them. (Source)
• An estimated $41 billion is lost by U.S. companies alone each year due to poor customer service. (Source)
• 77% of US online adults say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good service. (Source)
• 45% of customers can’t remember having a recent successful customer experience. (Source)
• 97% of global consumers say that customer service is very important or somewhat important in their choice of and loyalty to a brand. (Source)
• 62% of global consumers have stopped doing business with a brand or organization due to a poor customer service experience. (Source)
• 60% of consumers have higher expectations for customer service now than they did just one year ago. (Source)
A large number of these important customer service interactions occur via the contact center, and yet, nearly 80% of contact centers say their current customer service systems won’t meet their future needs. (Source) In order to enhance the customer experience (and overall brand perception and bottom line), companies need to invest in modern contact center technology that will allow agents to more effectively perform their jobs.
While call recording software used to analyze agent conversations with customers is standard in a call center environment, it has become antiquated. Because it requires managers to manually review calls, only a sampling of calls are reviewed, which doesn’t provide an accurate depiction of agent performance and customer satisfaction overall. This is why speech analytics software with an audio mining component is so beneficial.
Using speech analytics, a company is able to mine for pre-determined keywords and phrases across every phone call, not just a sample of calls. It turns the wealth of valuable data that was previously hidden inside calls into structured voice of the customer data that can be used to improve customer service initiatives. Because the software scans calls in a systematic way, trends begin to emerge and the company is able to take action to improve upon any processes that might need attention.
A positive customer service experience influences the customer experience as a whole. Because it’s so critically important to overall business success in a competitive environment, businesses need to be investing in customer service technology that will result in a positive return on investment over time.
