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Contact Center
Satisfaction Negatively
Impacts Business
It’s probably no surprise that a
poor contact center interaction can
leave a bad taste in a customer’s
mouth. Less intuitive is the fact
that contact center satisfaction has
worsened during the last two years,
according to new market research
released by BoldChat and performed
by LogMeIn and Ovum, despite in-
vestments in new customer engage-
ment channels.
The dip could be explained by in-
creasing customer expectations and
technological sophistication. What those
don’t explain is an apparent gap in
perception of customer service quality
between contact center managers and
customers. The report, which surveyed
hundreds of contact center managers
and consumers globally, found that the
consumers surveyed believe it takes six
different interactions to resolve an issue
while the surveyed contact center man-
agers believe it takes only one to two
touchpoints. “This disconnect can be
largely due to the fact that 72 percent of
consumers surveyed search for informa-
tion online before contacting an agent,
but the majority of contact center man-
agers surveyed (52 percent) do not track
digital behavior,” said the study.
The report also revealed that
while 86 percent of consumers re-
ported using five or more channels
for support, 43 percent of consum-
ers noted that they believe access
to agents has worsened during the
last two years with 50 percent citing
frustration with automated response
systems. And while 68 percent of
participating consumers still believe
that phone calls provide the most
success for resolution, 78 percent
would choose a channel other than
voice if they knew they could get a
resolution on the first attempt.
“The disparity between the per-
ception of contact centers and the
reality of consumers when it comes
to customer experience is worrisome
as every interaction is proving to be
critical to customer retention,” said
Ken Landoline, principal analyst, cus-
tomer engagement at Ovum.
Indeed, any disappointment with
customer experience is threatening cus-
tomer loyalty, sustainability and revenue
growth as 82 percent of consumer said
they would stop doing business with a
company following a bad experience.
“Today’s always-connected cus-
tomer expects immediate access to
information and fast, efficient and fric-
tionless service,” said David Camp-
bell, vice president at LogMeIn. “Most
contact centers struggle to meet these
expectations because they are limited
by disjointed, legacy systems.”
Security Outsourcing
Expands
Nearly six out of 10 IT departments
are increasing the amount of IT secu-
rity that they plan to outsource, and IT
security outsourcing is becoming more
attractive to small and mid-sized orga-
nizations, according to researchers at
Computer Economics.
Among the drivers to outsource se-
curity, organizations are moving away
from mere perimeter security to moni-
toring and risk-mitigation. This requires
new skills that are harder to obtain.
Similarly, new challenges seem to ap-
pear every day, including sophisticated
cyberattacks from foreign sources, a
mobile workforce and the use of cloud-
based applications and resources.
In turn, none of the organizations
recently surveyed by Computer Eco-
nomics are cutting back on outsourc-
ing IT security, while a solid 59 percent
are increasing it.
“It tells me that companies are tak-
ing the new security threats seriously,
while at the same time, many are go-
ing outside the company for the kinds
of IT security skills that can be hard to
find in-house,” said Tom Dunlap, direc-
tor of research for Irvine, Calif.-based
Computer Economics
The surveys also found that, al-
though organizations do not appear
to save a great deal of money by out-
sourcing their security tasks, service
levels are higher. “Many organizations
have taken a measured but consistent
approach to outsourcing their security
needs,” said the IT research group.
Telegration Launches
New Partner Mobile App
Michigan-based master agency
Telegration launched a new applica-
tions, TeleApp, to provide its sub-
agents with mobile access to common
tools and materials used in their sales
processes. TeleApp also was created
to encourage direct, regular commu-
nication with channel managers, said
the company.
What are the top issues you
experience with customer service?
Automated telephony system is annoying
50
Difficult to reach a human rep
43
Wait times to interact with live agent
33
Transfers
20
It takes a long time to find the answer to my problem 16
Having to repeat information
13
Difficult to find information on web or mobile app 10
Technical issues with support channels
6
Agent knowledge and courtesy
5
Disjointed experience when I switch channels
4
Inconsistent information across channels
2
Source: Ovum, LogMeIn
10
Channel
Vision
|
September - October, 2016
Top IT security challanges
Source: IHS Markit
Source: Computer Economics
Outsourcing Trend: IT Security
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80
100
rs Outpace “All Others”
gion
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
n
Government
Healthcare
Others
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
35.0%
15 2016 2017 2018
Middle East
& Africa
Latin America
APAC
Europe
North America
Y-o-Y
8.5%
3.2%
8.3%
7.9%
5.2%
Best-in-Class
All Others
Bandwidth
on demand
Virtual
private cloud
Elastic
service chaining
Service
Percent of Respondents
Increasing
59%
About
Same
41%
Percent of Organizations
Source: Computer Economics, 2016
Outsourcing Cost Experience:
Network Operations
Cost Same,
39%
Cost More,
28%
Cost Less,
33%
Percent of Organizations