Local companies are operating in a fast-growing economy, characterised by strong competition, rising labour costs, increasingly demanding customers and growing penetration of Internet services. These factors are all helping to spur the growth of the self-service market.
So says John Ziniades, CEO of Consology, who adds that companies have no choice but to look at automated electronic systems as a way of containing their costs while improving the service their customers enjoy.
"Spiralling customer service costs, routine queries and transactions put a big strain on contact centres, translating into unnecessarily high customer support costs. Call centres spend most of their time processing mundane queries like requests for a bill to be faxed, or enquires about an account, things customers can handle quickly and easily themselves in a self-service environment," he adds.
According to Ziniades, research shows telephonic support is typically up to 15 times more expensive than self-service. For many companies, printing and posting bills and statements each month is also a huge expense. By allowing customers to manage their accounts themselves, companies can achieve massive cost-savings.
Customers have had enough of long queues and poor call centre service, says Ziniades. They demand quick access to service, visibility into their relationships with suppliers and easy ways to transact. For that reason, self-service is becoming a business essential.
He says self-service is often faster and more pleasant for customers, as it gives them access to a wealth of information that they couldn't easily access through alternative channels. He cites the cellular industry as an example, as subscribers examine their electronic bills using sophisticated reporting, or easily research and compare new phones before ordering a handset upgrade.
He says banks and insurers are cross- and up-selling an increasingly diverse and complicated set of products into their customer bases. The end-result is that customers are flocking to their call centres and branches to get information that will help them to understand the products they are buying. Getting customers to do their own research and find answers to their questions online can take a huge amount of pressure off the call centre, he adds.
"The self-service channel is seen as a more transparent and direct way of engaging with an organisation's systems and thus a more trusted source of information."
Ziniades explains that the pool of middle-class consumers in SA with Internet access, and more particularly broadband connections, continues to grow with hundreds of thousands of customers already using always-on Internet connections such ADSL, wireless broadband, and high-speed cellular connections. Customers who have broadband often prefer to interact with a Web site rather than standing in queues or holding for call centre agents.
A well-implemented self-service solution improves customer loyalty and provides a channel for cross- and up-selling of products and services to customers, he concludes. "It can be a direct touchpoint to the customer for relationship management."
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