Online Businesses Fail to Recognize the Customer is King
United Kingdom - Eptica multichannel customer service study results revealed
A revealing new report - The 2011 Eptica UK Multichannel Customer Service Study - lays bare the gulf in customer service support that UK consumers face when buying online.
The report
reveals a worrying email black hole with less than half of
companies (48%) correctly answering questions posed over email,
47% not acknowledging receipt of the email and one in four (27%)
failing to respond at all.
The in-depth study was made by Eptica, a leader in multi-channel customer
interaction management software.
The study looked at how customer service
performance is faring at 100 leading UK organisations with
regard to their ability to answer simple routine questions via
email, their website and whether they had integrated their
customer service with social media.
With websites only able to provide the answer to 50% of
enquiries on average, consumers are being forced to contact
companies via email, but this by no means guarantees a better
service.
Email Black Hole
The time it took to respond to emails varied massively with the
longest answer taking five days (120 hours), and the average
time taking 20 hours and 41 minutes. Interestingly, only 28% of
companies were able to provide responses within their own
specified timeframes - a move that breeds distrust and
frustration for the consumer. However, receiving a fast and
accurate response is possible with one company responding with
useful information in a blistering 3 minutes.
Dee Roche, European Marketing Director at Eptica, commented:
"This report signals a wake-up call for the industry. Customers
don't want to feel as if they've disappeared into a black hole
where their voice is not being heard.
Some of the findings, particularly in relation to the lack of
responsiveness via email are unforgiveable. Damage to a brand,
high customer churn and lost sales opportunities can all be
avoided if the company develops an integrated and consistent
approach to its online customer service."
To find out if your business is implementing best practice
customer service visit http://www.eptica.com for a full copy of
the Report.
The 2011 Eptica UK Multichannel Customer Service Study was
conducted over a two month period in 2011. 100 websites across
the insurance, travel, CD/DVD/book retail, food retail,
electronics retail, consumer electronics manufacturers,
utilities, fashion retail, telecoms and banking sectors were
evaluated in three areas:
1) For their ability to answer ten basic, sector-specific
questions via their website;
2) On the speed and accuracy of their responses via their email
channel;
3) How they integrated links to sites such as Facebook, Twitter
and forums into their overall customer service strategy.
About Eptica
Eptica is the leading European multilingual solution for
Customer Interaction Management including Web Self-service,
Social Customer Service, Email Management, Chat, Fax-Letter- SMS
and Knowledge management for Customer Service. Available on
premise or SaaS, Eptica software enables website and customer
service channels to improve quality of service, resolve
enquiries faster, reduce costs and maximize every sales
opportunity. Today more than 330 customers, including some of
the world's largest brands, in 15 countries, use Eptica
solutions to deliver excellent customer service at much lower
cost. Eptica's customers include: Haven Holidays, Republic,
Panasonic, Virgin Holidays, Ageas Insurance Solutions, Brent
Council, DatingDirect.com, Capita, Société Générale, South East
Water, ING and Barclays.
Eptica is based in the UK, France, Spain, Canada and Singapore
and operates worldwide through its network of partners. Eptica
was awarded the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA in 2009 for
the third consecutive year. The company's continuing innovation
and strong performance resulted in Eptica's inclusion in
Gartner's 2010 Magic Quadrant for Web Customer Service. Info:
http://www.eptica.com.
