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Can your Contact Center Keep Up with Changing Consumer Demands?

Companies of all sizes now compete in the experience economy to attract new customers and build customer loyalty and advocacy. No longer able to rely on product quality or price, companies must consistently deliver exceptional customer experience to drive bottom line growth. Can your contact center keep up with changing consumer demands?

With fierce competition and dozens of service channels available, customer service leaders have to continuously monitor and improve customer experience while also expanding their service channels and fine-tuning their contact center operations to meet consumer demand for speed, convenience and personalization.

The second annual NICE inContact Customer Experience (CX) Transformation Benchmark includes consumers from three countries – United States, United Kingdom and Australia – with year-over-year results for US (2018 vs 2017), and new benchmark data for UK and Australia. The 2018 survey reveals that use of digital channels is higher than phone – however use of “automated assistants” or chatbots by consumers for recent service interactions is still limited at only 8% globally.

The CX Transformation Benchmark year-over-year results among US consumers show a shift toward digital channels for service – use of email doubled and chat tripled. Consumers in all regions are most satisfied with online chat with a live agent, compared to ten other channels evaluated. 56% of US consumers surveyed are highly satisfied with chat interactions; 47 and 44% of UK and Australia consumers, respectively, report being highly satisfied with their most recent chat experience.

The study also provides stronger opinions from consumers about artificial intelligence as AI becomes more prominent in contact center technology. Nine in 10 consumers prefer to talk to a live agent rather than a chatbot or virtual assistant. Consumer satisfaction with automated assistants is low, with only 27% of users giving a 9 or 10 rating out of 10.

Consumers are continuing to explore AI self-service options as they come to market, but consumers are still hesitant to adopt them broadly. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said chatbots and virtual assistants need to get smarter before they are willing to use them regularly.

Businesses are no longer just being measured against their direct competitors – they are being measured against every positive customer experience a consumer has ever had, and the results show this to be true.

Get your copy of the 2018 NICE inContact Customer Experience Transformation Benchmark and see for yourself how your contact center can prepare for the new consumer expectations.