Today contact center industry is one of the most prominent industries in the world. Almost every company today has a contact center and millions from across the world are associated with this industry.
But we all know that the contact center industry can be somewhat tumultuous and unpredictable at times. And so, in order to survive, you need to pay close attention to the recent trends in this industry. And the best way to do so is to look at some insightful statistics.
These statistics will not only help you understand the recent trends in every aspect of the industry, analyzing and evaluating which, but you can also have an idea about the future strategy of your contact centers.
In this blog, we bring you 25 important stats that will shed some light on 6 different aspects of the contact center industry. We have also included our own opinion based on these stats. We hope that you will find these helpful.
Customer Experience
1) With 60% often/always paying more for a better experience, customer experience is a high priority for consumers, even in a negative economy. (Source: Harris Interactive)
2) In the past 4 years, the percentage of consumers who stopped doing business with a company due to a bad customer experience has risen from 59% to 86%. (Source: Harris Interactive)
3) After a poor customer experience, 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor. (Source: Harris Interactive)
4) In the same situation, 59% will try a new brand or company in anticipation of a better service experience. (Source: American Express)
Our Opinion
Customer Service should not be taken lightly. Today, customers today are choosier and more discerning. If your quality of customer service is poor, you are sure to lose key customers to your competitors. Interestingly, most of these customers are willing to pay more for a superior customer experience and service.
Self-Service and Call Automation
5) By 2020, the customer will be able to maintain 85% of the relationship with a company without interacting with a human. (Source: Gartner)
6) US contact centers spend $12.4 billion annually verifying the caller is who they say they are. 59% of calls require identity verification, but only 3% of these are handled entirely through automated processes. (Source: ContactBabel)
7) The IVR amount to 27% of the total call experience. However, currently only 7% of organizations offer an IVR solution that delivers a superior experience (CSAT) than their live agent solution. (Source: JD Power & Associates)
Our Opinion
Self-service is the future of customer service. As customers’ preferences are changing rapidly, they expect and demand immediate service and superior experience. These days, customers expect almost instant gratification and to do so, they have the necessary tools at their fingertips that help them stay in touch with the contact center through multiple communication channels. They don’t want to wait on hold and to repeat their information.
To stay in the competition you will need to live up to the customers’ expectations and needs for self service and instant gratification. And the only way to do so is to apply artificial intelligence to self-service.
Quality and Performance Management
8) Only 31% of companies strictly monitor the quality of relations with target customers. (Source: Forrester Research)
9) 67% of organizations see access to real-time or near real-time metrics as a very important capability. However, only a few companies (8%) get access to their metrics as soon as they are generated. Fewer than 18% receive them on the same day, while the remaining companies it get it within four weeks. (Source: Ventana Research)
10) 60% of all repeat calls are process or training driven. I most cases, business processes are not in position to meet the customer’s need, as agents are not given the training required to meet the customer expectations set by marketing or elsewhere in the business.
11) Organizations that focus on frequent training reap the benefits in first call resolution – 65% first call resolution instead of 58% for those who have frequent trainings. (Source: Parature)
12) Only 31% of businesses recognize and reward employees for improving customer experience. (Source: Forrester Research)
Our Opinion
These stats show that when it comes to agent quality and performance management, the companies have a long way to go. They need to maximize the potential of every employee and provide the training needed.
To get more value from Quality Assurance efforts, organizations should rethink approach to Quality Assurance (QA). Analytics-driven QA will deliver insight into critical business issues as well as opportunities to improve customer experience and revenue generation.
Multi-Channel
13) Contact channels except the phone, for example, – email, Web self-service, chat, as well as other online techniques account for over 30% of customer service engagements today. Web self-service and email are the two prominent contact channels next to phone. (Source: CFI Group)
14) In the US, 21% of online shoppers favor live chat, almost the same number as those who prefer using the telephone (23%). The number is way ahead of social media (2%). Email however, still remains the most popular mode of communication for online shoppers, with 54% saying they prefer this method to talk to customer service. (Source: BoldChat )
15) 60% of adults aged 25–29 live in households where they only have wireless telephones. (Source: Centers for Disease Control)
Our Opinion
Contact centers are using different channels to reach their customers nowadays. In this age of constant communication, customers expect to be able to interact with a company via any channel –phone, web, live chat or email. If companies can put more stress on gaining the extract insights from self-service, Web chat, email and social media conversations. It can lead us into speech and text analytics.
Speech and Text Analytics
16) At present, there are over 3,170 active, successful speech analytics implementations. (Source: SpeechTech)
17) Speech analytics was one of the top two fastest-growing call center tools in 2012. The adoption of the software grew by 59% and Web chat grew by 60%. (Source: ContactBabel)
18) The speech analytics market is projected to continue to expand over the next several years, growing by 25 percent in 2013 and 20 percent in 2014. (Source: DMG Consulting)
19) Speech analytics solutions are currently in use in 24% of all organizations, predominantly used by services, outsourcing and finance organizations. There is an appreciable amount of interest in implementing a new speech analytics system or replacing the one they have within the near future, especially in the medical sector (45% of companies), insurance sector (54%) and retail (40%). (Source: ContactBabel)
What these Speech Analytics Statistics Say about the Future of Contact Centers?
These statistics show that speech analytics may be the fastest growing trend that will impact the future of contact centers. Speech analytics allows you to identify calls, helps you improve First Contact Resolution and reduce customer churn, and enables you to increase sales and collections via sharing best practices.
Social Media
20) More than 50% of Facebook users and 80% of Twitter users look forward to a response to a customer service inquiry within a day or less.(Source: Oracle)
21) Failure to respond via social channels can lead to up to a 15% increase in churn rate for existing customers. (Source: Gartner)
22) About 56% of customer tweets to companies are ignored. (Source: Huffington Post “100 Fascinating Social Media Statistics and Figures from 2012″)
23) 19% of consumers who had unsatisfactory service interactions shared their experiences through social networks in 2010, a 50% increase over 2009. (Source: Forrester)
24) Customers who wrote about their contact center experiences on social media sites and then received follow-up from the company rated their overall satisfaction with the contact center experience nearly 20%higher and are 15% more likely to recommend the company than those who received no follow-up. (Source: CFI Group)
25) Servicing via social media boosts customer satisfaction by 15-20%. (Source: CFI Group)
Our Opinion
Social Media is likely to have a huge impact on the future of the contact center industry. After interacting with your company, a customer can immediately vent their frustrations or share their positive experiences at just a click of a button and the whole world knows about it. This is why customer service you provide is more important than ever before. Responding regularly to your customers’ requests and comments on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, blogs and others is a good strategy.
The Statistics Indicate one thing, and one thing only – You need to get ready to change with time.
In the contact center industry, it’s vital to be well prepared and practical. On the whole, these statistics can show you that the future of contact centers is changing fast. In order to survive, you must be willing to adhere to these changes.
