The coming era of digital disruption has long been predicted, but it is here now. Organizations have adopted new ways of doing businesses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lines between digital, in-person and all other channels are blurring. As detailed in the new Medallia “Contact Center and Digital, Better Together” eBook, companies across categories have seen online channel adoption grow by 15% to 40%, and 75% of the customers who report using digital channels for the first time say they plan to keep doing so even after things return to “normal.”
In other words, the new customer experience is digital and cross-channel, and digital experiences are increasingly synonymous with the overall customer experience. When different channels work in sync and digital, strategy and contact center operations team members are able to collaborate efficiently — without customers and their issues falling through the cracks — companies can increase customer loyalty, build trust and drive more profitable business.
Here are 12 good customer experiences stats featured in Medallia’s “Contact Center and Digital, Better Together” eBook that illustrate the urgency of why brands need to close the gap between their digital and traditional customer service channels to improve both overall and digital customer experiences.
Customers Are Experimenting With New Channels
1. Digital channel adoption has grown by 15% to 40%, across industries, as a result of changing consumer behavior related to the pandemic.
2. 75% of the people who report having tried out digital channels for the first time say they intend to continue doing so even after their routines return to “normal.”
During this time of shifting customer behavior, it’s important to keep track of what’s working (and what’s not), especially for new users who may be unfamiliar with how these digital experiences are intended to work. They may need more help getting through the sign-up or check-out process, for instance, and your company’s contact center data and insights may shed light on any potential areas in which users are experiencing breakdowns in the customer experience, underscoring where there’s room for improvement.
Customers Want Consistent Omnichannel Experiences
3. 75% of customers want to have consistent experiences, no matter which department they’re communicating with.
4. 58% report feeling as if they’re interacting with separate departments and not one single company.
5. 70% expect all of the customer service representatives they come in contact with to have the same information about them, but 64% report that they have to re-explain the issues they’re experiencing.
These statistics from Deloitte demonstrate just how important it is for brands to offer seamless customer experiences across the end-to-end customer journey, and the degree to which organizations are currently falling short.
Companies that democratize access to key customer data and leverage shared systems across all teams that interact with customers — including both online and offline channels — will be better positioned to present a unified front, one that saves both the customer and employees time and frustration.
Channel Silos Can Come at an Incredible Cost to Brands
6. In 2012, as detailed in a new book, Expedia was receiving up to 20 million customer service calls. At roughly $5 per call, that added up to $100 million.
7. About 58% of customers who booked a trip with the company ended up calling customer service afterward for help.
The No. 1 reason people were calling? Because they simply couldn’t access their itinerary through the company’s website. With different teams focused on their own priorities — contact center reps were focused on reducing talk time, marketers were focused on growing audiences, product was focused on increasing revenue and the web team was focused on rolling out features — no single team had ownership of solving for this simple (and pervasive) issue. Since then, the company has been able to get to the bottom of why these customers were calling and pinpoint where the breakdown in the digital customer experience was taking place, address the root cause online, and improve the overall customer experience, leading to a significant drop in calls from 58% to 15%.
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
Apr
5
Adopt a Modern Digital-First Marketing Strategy
Learn how to use a composable DXP to your advantage
Webinar
Apr
13
Composable Commerce The Future of Retail
The Adobe Commerce approach to composable and why it's best in class
Webinar
Apr
13
Accelerating Content Velocity Across the Digital Supply Chain
Learn to integrate DAM with upstream tools to improve workflow efficiency.
Webinar
Apr
18
Drive Business Growth Through Customer Service and Support
Defining the future of technology. What is AI’s role in the future of customer service?
When Digital Experiences Improve, Calls Decline and Business Can Save Money
8. One retailer, a Medallia client, found that 70% of its contact center calls were a direct result of digital self-service issues.
9. Another Medallia client in the financial services industry estimated that increasing digital visits by just 2% to 5% could help it save up to $1 million in contact center costs.
10. 22% of repeat call volume is related to a problem that prompted an original call, even if that problem itself was adequately addressed the first time around.
11. Reducing contact center calls by 200,000 enabled one Medallia client in the insurance industry to reduce employee work hours by 16,000, enabling the company to reassign more than 10 FTEs to other tasks.
When web and mobile app experiences are broken, confusing or incomplete, it’s only inevitable that customer call and other customer support volume will increase. Companies that take the time to address underlying causes — such as by fixing bugs or adding helpful FAQs or how-to videos — can improve digital self service, reduce call volume and save costs. Inaction, on the other hand, could lead to the unfortunate scenario where customers keep experiencing — and contact center teams continue to field questions about — the same exact issues over and over again.
Contact Center Data Is a Goldmine of Insights Often Overlooked
12. The majority of organizations only monitor about 1% of all contact center calls, says Rachel Lane, Contact Center Solution Principal for Medallia, from what she has seen throughout her career.
When businesses monitor only 1% of their customer calls, they’re missing out on 99% of the picture! That has ramifications not only for the contact center customer experience, but the overall customer experience.
As these customer experience stats show, organizations have the potential to unlock and share insights captured within call centers and share them company-wide to improve a myriad of customer channels, from in-store and delivery to mobile and online.
This article originally appeared on medallia.com.
