Data gaps challenge customer service
Customer expectations of the service they receive are not matched by the experience, with organisations failing to put in place the resources necessary to support positive interactions. More than half of European consumers do not judge customer service operations to be effective, according to research by Oracle.
In interviews with 1,500 consumers, it found that long call queues, repetition of queries to different staff members and inconsistent answers were the principal sources of complaints. But among the 250 European contact centre managers interviewed, more than half had no plans to introduce self-service portals, even though customers are keen to resolve their queries via the Internet.
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Managers have recognised that better quality of information, together with staff training, are the two prime requirements for improving customer service, however. "Turning information on customer behaviour and their life events into actionable intelligence enables the business to sense and respond to their needs," says Loic le Guisquet, senior vice president, Oracle CRM EMEA.
The findings chime with results from research carried out by Aspect Software. It found that 10.3 per cent of all telephone enquiries now require agents to seek assistance from knowledge workers in other departments. Half of supervisors and one third of agents said enquiries needed two interactions to resolve.
Involving experts from other functions adds 2.5 minutes to call times on average. One quarter of these enquiries needed additional support on technical details, one quarter had to turn to financial, insurance or casualty experts and half needed to involve other managerial functions.