The customer care landscape is changing. Consumers are becoming more used to the idea of serving themselves, rather than visiting a physical outlet or phoning a call centre to transact and interact with the companies they do business with.
So says Consology CEO John Ziniades, who adds that across the world, businesses are rushing to respond to demands from customers who want to serve themselves quickly and easily, in their own time and using the channel that best suits their needs.
"Customers are frustrated with long queues and inconsistent service, and want to manage their relationships with companies in their own time. One recent survey conducted for NCR by Opinion Research in the US found consumers estimate they spend two days every year waiting in line for service," he explains.
Ziniades says it is little wonder, then, that 40% of the respondents to the survey said they were willing to use self-service kiosks or other self-service devices to reduce time wasted while waiting for customer care. More than 40% chose one supplier over another because it offered self-service options.
According to him, another survey released by Jupiter Research in 2006 found that 90% of US customers who contacted customer service over a six-month period used online self-service at least once.
"Research conducted by World Wide Worx, on behalf of Consology, shows self-service is also on the rise locally, as customers demand a better level of service from their service providers, and as businesses try to contain climbing customer service costs while differentiating themselves from the competition."
He says self-service is not a new concept. "The ATM is just one example of an application that consumers know and appreciate. From online banking and flight bookings, to automated check-ins at airports and ticketing kiosks at cinemas, through to prepaid airtime purchases via interactive voice response units, self-service has become the preferred channel of interaction for many South Africans. Since the introduction of the first ATMs in the 1980s, South African businesses have rushed to bring new self-service applications to their customers, with banks and telecoms firms leading the charge."
Ziniades says companies understand that those that embrace an integrated self-service strategy will outperform those that do not. He cites the next phase in the development of self-service as being Web-based self-service applications that make life even easier for customers.
"Web-based self-service gives consumers the freedom to interact and transact with the companies they do business with at any time of any day: they can pay bills, research product and service offerings, apply for services, initiate bill disputes, check and change account information, initiate and track support requests, and more, all from their desks at work or at home," he concludes.
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