We conducted a study to determine the affect of technology on Customer Service Agent’s ability to deliver great customer experiences, increase revenue, decrease customer churn, agent attrition and contact center and call center costs, especially the cost of doing social media Customer Service without a specific technology platform that allows all interactions- Facebook, Twitter, calls, chats, emails, etc.. to be delivered to the desktop and the context of the interaction to be maintained even if the customer uses another interaction action channel.
This study includes three case studies in which we measured the time it took the agents to deliver customer service through email, chat, phone, social media channels. We compared that to using a system that would provide a systematic way to pivot real-time between channels, reducing the cost to serve the customer and at the same time reducing the customer churn, especially where social media can drive negative word of mouth.
While not all customers post in social media and complain, many more customers are reading what customers are posting and not even bothering to buy from that company. The ratio for most customer bases for social media interaction follow the 1-9-90 rule. 1% of the customers post; 9% respond to those customers that post and 90% read the posts from the 10%. This ratio varies from vertical industry and whether its is a B2C or B2B company. However, the point is that the social customer service should not be underestimated just because all customers are not posting in social media. The important take-a-way is that word of mouth, whether its positive or negative, does influence large percentage of your customers.
Below is one of the two presentation I gave at the http://www.contactcenter2013.com/ in Arizona –
How Technology Affects Agent Performance and the Bottom-Line by @DrNatalie Petouhoff_Contact Center
And the 3 white papers with the results of the study on how technology affects agent productivity and the bottom-line:
DrNatalie Study on Agent Productivity and Social Media and Traditional Customer Service_Case Study 1
The Affect of the Customer Service Agent on the Bottom-line Research #2
The Affect of the Customer Service Agent on the Bottom-line Research #3
Below is the 2nd of the two presentation I gave at the http://www.contactcenter2013.com/ in Arizona –
7 Steps to Customer Experience And Contact Center Excellence @DrNatalie
If you would like to know more about how to add social media to your contact center, benchmark your current center and understand where you are with respect to best practices, please reach out to us!