Companies Falling Short with Online Customer Service

In the run up to the Institute of Customer Service’s National Customer Service Week, the world's largest celebration of customer service professionalism, from 4th till 10th October 2010, research commissioned by RightNow shows that nearly half of businesses are still not meeting consumer expectations when resolving issues or finding information online.

As a result, 43 percent of consumers reduce business with a company and more than a third stop doing business with a company completely.

A consistent customer experience across multiple interaction channels is necessary to provide a positive customer experience, and given the choice, the research shows that British consumers prefer to self-serve on a company website, with more than a third (34 percent) stating that they like to look online for information about their purchases or account.

Consumer desire to have information at their fingertips is ahead of emailing a company (26 percent) and calling a customer service agent (25 percent).

Despite the increasing numbers of consumers using company websites to find information, interact with the company and other customers, make purchases or, in some cases, pay bills, companies are still missing the opportunity to listen to their consumers via their sites. In fact, the study found that almost half (49 percent) of respondents felt they were not listened to when they provided feedback online.

Joe Brown, General Manager EMEA, RightNow Technologies said:

“If organisations want to succeed, they need to provide consumers with a consistent service experience across all channels of communication. Companies need to remember that online is an important channel not only for providing knowledge to consumers but also gathering feedback and listening to customer needs, ensuring a competitive advantage and encouraging loyalty. Let’s all join together and make sure that prior to National Customer Service Week next year we can be proud of the experience we are providing to our customers via all service channels.”

Jo Causon, Chief Executive, Institute of Customer Service added:

“National Customer Service Week raises awareness of customer service and the vital role it plays within organisations. Consumer expectations are changing quickly and more radically due to technology, in particular social media. Companies and organisations need to rise to meet these challenges, for as the research clearly shows, these expectations are ignored at companies’ peril.”

About RightNow

RightNow is helping rid the world of bad experiences one consumer interaction at a time, eight million times a day. RightNow CX, the customer experience suite, helps organizations deliver exceptional customer experiences across the web, social networks and contact centers, all delivered via the cloud. With more than ten billion customer interactions delivered, RightNow is the customer experience fabric for nearly 2000 organizations around the globe. Info: www.rightnow.com.

About the Institute of Customer Service

The Institute of Customer Service is the professional body for customer service delivering tangible benefit to organisations and individuals so that our customers can improve their customers’ experience and their own business performance. The Institute is a membership body with a community of more than 300 organisational members - from the private, public and third sectors - and around 7,000 individual memberships. Info: www.instituteofcustomerservice.com.

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