From Finextra:
“Despite the millions invested by banks in the Internet channel, clients still find it quicker to call contact centres for basic information, according to a UK study conducted by Cambridge-based Transversal.
The annual research measures customer service by searching for answers to ten common sector-specific questions on the Web sites, via e-mail and contact centres of ten major UK banks.
The study found that bank sites could only provide answers for 50% of routine questions asked online, with the majority relying on static and complex FAQ pages rather than interacting with customers to deliver the right answers through the right channel.
Around a third (30%) of sites struggled to answer more than two out of ten product and service questions – while only one scored top marks.
Customer service was even worse for those trying to get answers from banks via e-mail, says Transversal, with a almost third (30%) of the banks surveyed still not offering the facility to e-mail questions. Of those that did, the average reply time to an e-mail was 30 hours – and even then only three out of ten satisfactorily answered the question, so customers would still need to contact a call centre for the information.
In contrast, the study found that 60% of customer service calls to a contact centre were answered within three minutes, with the shortest wait times being just a few seconds. During the busiest time in the evening, some longer wait times of between six and 15 minutes were experienced, but overall answer times were less than four minutes.”
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This interesting report on Web 2.0 also comes from Traversal:
Web 2.0 Powers Revolution In Customer ServiceInteraction and personalisation creates new communication channels, but also potential pitfalls, believes Transversal.
The advent of Web 2.0 technologies provides organisations with the ability to radically change how they interact with their customers, dramatically improving service levels and consequently increasing sales. This is the view of web self-service leader Transversal (www.transversal.com), which has created a top 10 guide to help companies embrace areas such as two way interaction, personalisation, RSS feeds and blogs to get closer to customers.
Web 2.0 is the umbrella term for new technologies and techniques that enable users to drive greater personalisation and interaction with web sites. Examples include social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace, blogging and wikis. The challenge for organisations is selecting and implementing the right Web 2.0 techniques to positively enhance their brand and sales.
“The advent of Web 2.0 opens up communication between organisations and their customers, enabling unprecedented personalisation as users drive how they interact with brands of all sizes,” commented Dee Roche, head of marketing, Transversal. “This is the perfect opportunity to increase customer satisfaction and interaction. Customer service departments should be at the forefront of adopting Web 2.0 techniques and use them to build stronger relationships based on listening to customers and responding to their needs.”
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And this one on Record numbers of customers moving to self-service:
Record Numbers of consumers turn Web self-service for answers
The web is becoming a primary customer service channel for businesses as more consumers shop and access information online, according to Transversal.
Transversal’s Web Self-Service Index has highlighted a sharp increase in the number of consumers asking questions through web self-service systems to obtain customer service information. In the quest to avoid calling or emailing contact centres, the amount of customers turning to this channel for faster responses to questions has risen 224 per cent from 2004 to 2006.
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Slight conundrum there – customers are moving fast to web self-service, but not getting the right answers and having to call contact centre.
