What Do Customers Actually Want From Contact Centres?
The world is changing, people seem busier than ever before and are bombarded daily with thousands of messages. They want their lives simplified, and that includes their experiences with companies over the phone.
Customers expect and demand immediate service and satisfaction. These days, regardless of age, gender or occupation, customers expect an almost instant gratification when it comes to customer service. They have tools at their fingertips, (isn’t everyone glued to a smartphone nowadays?) that provide constant and immediate communication. When they need to call a company they don’t want to wait on hold and they certainly don’t want to repeat their information or their issue.
In fact, almost three quarters of UK adults would actually change supplier based on a poor experience with the contact centre. Customers feel aggrieved if they get the sense that a company is wasting their precious time through inefficient processes, systems or agents.
So what’s top of the list for making customers have a happy experience with their contact centre?
– 72% expect first call resolution.
– 71% expect polite and friendly agents.
– 48% expect short queue times.
– 29% don’t want to be transferred.
– 23% want short IVR menu options.
– 12% want short call times.
– 10% want long opening hours.
None of these factors should be a shock to a seasoned contact centre manager; they are the basics of call handing and good customer service. However, contact centres are obviously failing to deliver on the basics otherwise customers would not continue to be frustrated.
The main reason we find that organisations fail to deliver on the customer experience is that they are restricted by the legacy contact centre platform they use. It is difficult for them to dynamically change routing rules, queue management and announcements and often near impossible to implement self-service options.
By overlaying a cloud contact centre platform such as CIRRUS over your existing telephony platform, it can transform your operation and the service you deliver to your customers. It puts you back in control of your environment, it enables you to define how each and every call is handled, and what is more, it enables you to manage and refine your operation in real-time.
Jason Roos, Chief Executive Officer, Cirrus
