Johannesburg, 20 Nov 2015
For centuries, vampires and werewolves, ghosts and ghouls have been striking fear into the hearts of us mere mortals. However, a reputation for sub-par customer experience (CX) can strike a deadly blow to the very heart of your business, so says Ebrahim Dinat, COO at contact centre solutions provider, Ocular Technologies.
According to its partner company, Aspect, in its 2014 Personas Survey, 72% of consumers state that a poor experience would convince them to never do business with that company again. "That's almost three-quarters of recipients, and if that doesn't make the blood drain from your face, then I don't know what will!" says Dinat.
In monetary terms, NewVoiceMedia reports in their 2014 "A Nation of Serial Switchers" study that businesses are losing as much as $41 million every year when customers walk away frustrated.
Further investigation by Aspect has shown that 50% of customers get irritated when an issue is not resolved, whilst 76% of customers view service as a true test of how much the company values them and their custom.
"In short, poor customer service will quickly turn your business into a ghost town, whilst agents who fail to engage effectively during a customer service interaction may very well scare away a previously loyal customer," he explains.
He continues: "Aside from poor agent interactions, the other company-life-blood sucking culprit of these scary statistics is inefficient systems, which drain your contact centre of productivity." According to Forrester Research's 2012 thought leadership paper, commissioned by Aspect, on the next-generation contact centre, 42% of contact centres said that they are unable to effectively manage the end-to-end workflow of interactions; which was primarily due to unintegrated applications - the knock-on effects of which are process inefficiencies, reduced productivity and escalating costs. It also found that 51% of customer service teams struggle with data challenges.
In 2015, SDL surveyed nearly 3 000 consumers across nine countries and three generations about their single or most prominent points of CX failure and CX success over the last 10 years, how they behave as a result and the impact on a brand. The survey unearthed that 31% percent of customer dissatisfaction could be traced back to service teams that were not empowered to help customers.
"Scary stuff. But it needn't be. Ocular Technologies was the only Africa-based company to be chosen by CIOReview as one of the top 20 most promising contact centre technology solution providers in the world, thanks to its innovative technologies, methodologies and outstanding customer service; along with its capacity to meet the demand for flexible and cost effective solutions that add value to the contact centre landscape. Find out how we can help wake you up from a CX nightmare," concludes Dinat.
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