We’re hearing a lot about omni-channel in Marketing. And there are very few people who think that’s a bad thing.
What is a bad thing, however, is if companies are failing to get the basics of the approach right – which may be the case according to a sobering piece of analysis from Ovum, which came out recently.
We have more problems achieving omni-channel success than we like to think. I say that because the study, based on interviews Ovum had with contact centre staff and their users, came to this conclusion: “Although businesses are fully aware of new behavioural trends among customers, not all of them are tailoring their customer engagement and customer service experience strategies to match customers’ needs.”
Let’s be more specific about what “not tailoring” means – which in plainer language, one might take as “failing”. So, 48% of contact centre customers that the Ovum team surveyed said their ability to reach the right representative had worsened over the last two years – while 76% stopped doing business with a brand, following a customer service experience.
It gets worse. Respondents said they were most frustrated with the time taken to reach a representative and the time taken to resolve an issue, while long hold times and inflexible automated service menus continue to frustrate customers who simply want a fast resolution to a problem.
Ovum thinks this gap explains why many are turning to the Web for support inquiries, with contact centres seeing almost 50 percent of interactions coming from channels other than voice. For Aphrodite Brinsmead, senior analyst at Ovum and author of the study, the implications are clear, “customers are increasingly using digital channels for support, especially if they know they can get faster resolutions and response,” she says.
Brinsmead says it also indicates that businesses need to adapt their service tools to match customer needs and improve access to live agents – and that contact centres should invest in technology to understand cross-channel behaviour and link customers’ digital interactions with their profiles and case records.
It’s by optimising online support and guiding customers to the right channel for their issues, businesses will be able to improve resolution rates and customer satisfaction, she and the rest of her team are convinced.
No need to do this at premium prices
All this squares with what we see too often here at VoiceSage, especially when brands first approach us to get some help addressing dis-connected customer channels.
The brutal reality is that in this market, the retailer that is super-responsive, knows my history, wants to solve my problem, then actually does – is the retailer that will get my business. Omni-channel isn’t an option – it’s a must-have.
The good news is that getting there doesn’t mean a massive overhaul of processes or a huge investment in technology – often, as our customers find, it means sorting processes at the back end and a better way of working with customer data.
So don’t give in. As we make this journey to omni-channel engagement, surveys like this will keep being published. It’s just a reflection of the complexities and challenges of getting there.
But get there we must. As believe me, you really don’t want to be one of the 76% who mysteriously lose customers, for reasons that aren’t quite clear – as that’s going to lead to some very tough times ahead in the Digital Shopping Age.
The author is Development of Innovation at VoiceSage (www.voicesage.com), a business services company providing state of the art interactive voice messaging and SMS solutions
If you didn’t see it, Brinsmead’s work is here. The study is based on interactions with respondents in all major industry categories, including both the public and private sectors, and, please note, included both contact centre managers and customers from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand; in all, 315 contact centre managers and 400 customers were surveyed.
