VP of Marketing at MEF Member IMImobile PLC (LON:IMO) Alexander Klose shares the findings of their new survey where they asked UK consumers for their thoughts on AI, Chatbots and Customer Service Automation, with surprising results.
When it comes to self-education to help shape customer service strategies and future investment, businesses often over-rely on the wrong type of sources: studies which limit their audience, and therefore their findings to contact centre and customer experience (CX) professionals.
Unfortunately, this only gives one side of the story and not the one that matters most to you as a business. Surprised by the lack of research into the reality of the experiences consumers are currently receiving with both traditional and new methods of customer service, we took this opportunity to get to the bottom of what consumers really value from a business’s customer service experience.
The outcome revealed some surprises. For example, we found a strong disconnect between the customer service experience supposedly being offered today vs. the CX reported by our respondents. It was clear from the results that consumers are longing for more efficient methods of being served and engaged by businesses.
Consumers value their time above anything else
Post results analysis revealed a shock: voice channels dominated customer service interactions with 71% of respondents using either their mobile or landline the last time they submitted a query with a business.
But the real takeaway is that the channel doesn’t always align with consumer expectations. Despite 67% of recent voice channel respondents believing their query should be answered within 5 minutes, the majority experienced a waiting time of 5 to 29 minutes before they got through to an agent.
We asked consumers if they would be willing to wait longer for a customer service reply when using a messaging channel such as Facebook Messenger, as long as their enquiry was acknowledged. Showing off the potential benefits of using messaging channels, 78% of customers would be happy to do so simply by knowing that their issue has been acknowledged and will be dealt with soon, all without the customer being committed to a phone call. This is further backed up by later questions which revealed that 64% of respondents saw this as the biggest advantage of using messaging channels to submit their queries.
Gresham House Strategic PLC (LON:GHS) has a 12.1% ownership of IMImobile PLC, correct as of 31 October 2017 month end NAV announcement, released 31 October 2017
