Expectation Evolution: The Changing Role of Customer Service
With a Millennial-driven push towards digital outreach, contact centres must evolve to accommodate multiple methods of customer support.
We all know that phone calls are still the dominant form of customer service outreach, but their popularity has been significantly declining over the past few years.
Why is this happening?
Well, consumers these days are more informed about the purchasing process than they used to be. The Internet has given us almost limitless access to information—who hasn’t gone online to research a product and compare prices before making a purchasing decision? And if problems do come up after the purchase, consumers have ways to go online and figure out answers for themselves before dialing the contact centre. Millennials (and other youthful groups who are more used to using their phones for Internet browsing instead of actual phone calls) are the primary drivers of this trend, preferring channels that are easily accessible and don’t require interpersonal contact.
This puts the flexibility of digital outreach at the forefront of the customer service frontier. Phones aren’t going anywhere—but contact centres who want to deliver exceptional service need to be aware of their customer’s expectations.
A New Age of Service
Phone support used to be enough to satisfy most customers. These days, things work a little differently.
Millennials have only recently begun to enter the consumer world and flex their spending power, a power predicted by Frank Mayer and Associates Inc. to overtake their baby boomer parents within a decade. These younger crowds tend to prefer the digital channels they grew up with and use regularly for socialization.
Having said that, the trend towards digital customer service isn’t limited only to Millennials. A survey by Desk.com took a look at service preferences across three demographics—“Millennials” (aged 18-35), “Generation Xers” (36-55), and “baby boomers” (56-65). The results were surprising: while we typically imagine the older folks as the crowd who prefers traditional channels, only 41 percent of baby boomers and Gen Xers preferred voice interaction. On top of that, 80 percent considered phone-based customer service inconvenient.
What does this mean for the customer service landscape? While Millennials and the younger generation are definitely the drivers behind the push towards non-traditional channels, users across all age ranges like to have the flexibility of multichannel and digitized customer service.
In fact, the Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report by Dimension Data shows that in the past 10 years, digital outreach options like live chat, mobile apps, and social media have risen to account for 35 percent of all interactions. The report also forecasted that digital options will overtake voice channels in just two years—making it essential that contact centres rise to meet this need.
Pairing the Old and the New
There’s no doubt that self-service and non-traditional channels are growing in popularity, but we can’t write off phone support just yet—people may prefer self-service or live chat for simple issues, but it’s the complex problems that really tend to frustrate us. And as we know, frustration is the death of a positive customer experience.
When dealing with complicated issues, the consumer preference for a live agent increases. A study by Harvard Business Review highlighted this trend, showing that 60 percent of customers expect first-contact resolution through self-service or mobile options, yet are left disappointed. After, 75 percent will continue on with a more traditional (usually voice) option. This creates a unique situation where non-voice options act as the first line of customer service defense with voice channels working as a fallback for issues that escalate.
Meeting Their Needs
Though digital customer service options like social media, SMS text, and live chat are gaining ground in the customer service world, we must acknowledge that phone support is still a necessary part of the customer journey. Voice, while ostensibly unpopular, is one of the best ways to handle complex issues that can’t be resolved with self-service or slow-paced options. Digital channels are great for flexible and personalized service, but the human touch of phone support may always have a place in creating a positive customer experience.
