Email Customer Service Still Fails to Deliver

A recent consumer survey focused on the cross channel customer experience has revealed that an overwhelming 91 per cent of UK consumers have interacted with a customer service organisation by e-mail.

The research carried out by Alcatel-Lucent's Genesys, in partnership with Datamonitor and Ovum, highlights that although e-mail is a popular contact channel for today's consumers, many companies find it difficult to provide a high level of customer service through it.

Most businesses already use e-mail to interact with customers, however, management of it often does not match other channels and customer expectations are either not established or not even met.

Real-time media, such as voice, are handled in the call centre, whereas asynchronous media such as e-mails are often handled by experts in back-offices. This type of siloed organisation prevents consumers from effectively moving across contact channels mid-interaction, thereby losing the context of the 'conversation' and increasing customer frustration.

Businesses need to realise that in the current consumer market, it is not enough to offer a range of contact options, customers now want to converse across multiple channels for a single interaction.

Therein lies the problem for many businesses which treat communication channels in a siloed manner, commented Lucille Jackson, Senior Marketing Manager, Northern Europe, Enterprise Market Group Alcatel-Lucent. As a result, companies are going to need the systems and organisation that not only enable them to meet such customer expectations across multiple channels, but that also help organise and manage interactions to keep service levels high.

The answer lies in multimedia channel routing, which effectively blends contact channels creating a seamless transition across contact options, as well as effective back-office support and job pooling. By integrating channels, such as phone, Web, e-mail and SMS and improving the management of these tasks in the back-office, companies will be able to provide a more holistic cross channel customer experience, whilst keeping the context of the interaction throughout.

Ensuring that customers can start on the Web or via an e-mail enquiry and escalate to a live agent if needed gives customers more choice and freedom where contacting a customer service organisation is concerned. In addition, by refining back-office processes, for example, putting in place an auto-response system for e-mails much like a call-back feature for the phone channel that gives consumers a specific time-frame in which they will receive a reply from a company, helps to better manage interaction volumes at peak times and enables agents to prioritise and work through enquiries at a manageable pace, Lucille Jackson concluded. Info: www.genesyslab.com, www.alcatel-lucent.com.
 

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