Dive Brief:
- Nearly two-thirds of consumers rank first-contact resolution as a leading aspect of a customer service experience, according to a survey of 1,000 consumers released earlier this month by Ujet and ContactBabel.
- However, companies are falling short on this demand. One-third of respondents said that, fairly often, they have to call customer service back and explain the issue from the beginning multiple times. Another 2 in 5 say they need to do so very often.
- Another top pet peeve was long wait times, according to the findings. More than 7 in 10 consumers say customer service wait times are too long fairly or very often.
Dive Insight:
People value their time, and any hiccups that cause customer service journeys to take longer can frustrate consumers.
Many people will switch from their preferred customer service channel if they think it will save time, according to Patrick Quinlan, senior director analyst at Gartner. As a result, companies benefit when they develop a strategy that detects the issue as early as possible and directs customers to the best channel for resolution.
Each step of the journey should set expectations appropriately and ensure relevant data passes from one channel to the next as well.
A customer who prefers chat resolutions, for example, may launch a session with a chatbot even if they have a complex issue better suited for a live agent. Trying to resolve the inquiry through the bot, regardless of context, can be a mistake.
“A better approach would be to let customers describe their issue in plain language, then identify the intent or issue from that description,” Quinlan told CX Dive in an email. “Once the intent is identified, the bot should provide either the answer or the next best step, which may be to bring in a human agent or provide a callback.”
Potential callbacks need to be handled with care due to repetition being a common source of frustration. Organizations should develop a mature case management system to avoid unnecessary repeats, according to Quinlan.
“Rather than treating each contact or interaction as discrete, organizations need to quickly identify who is calling, what their issue is, and whether the same issue has occurred recently,” Quinlan said.
A simple way to keep cases organized is to assign each customer a number that represents their ongoing issue, Quinlan said. This provides a quick reference point that agents or chatbots can use to access information that is part of an ongoing case.
