[November 21, 2009] Corizon Survey: Contact Centres Struggling to Cope Tweet Nov 20, 2009 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- Corizon released findings from a recent poll that investigated which communication channels British consumers prefer, and those that contact centres offer, has revealed demographic preferences for contact methods. The survey was conducted by Corizon, which supplies an Enterprise Mashup Platform to businesses and contact centres. This platform transforms the economics of desktop applications. Corizon polled 2,127 consumers via YouGov, and carried out a simultaneous survey of 90 contact centre managers in England, Wales and Scotland, to find out about the contact channels they handled - and how they handled those channels. When asked how they would contact a company for customer, billing or support enquiries, consumers chose across a range of eight contact channels. Phone was the most popular channel, selected by 75 percent of respondents, followed by email (70 percent), web self-service (43 percent), letter (31 percent), social media such as Twitter or Facebook (4 percent), fax (3 percent) and SMS (3 percent). When asked which contact channels they supported, the responses from contact center managers showed that phone was the most popular medium, with 100 per cent support for phone queries. 96 percent had email support, 90 percent handled customer requests by letter, 65 percent offered web self-service, 27 percent supported SMS requests, 20 percent handled social media such as Twitter, online forums or Facebook, and 11 percent offered IM and online chat support. Over half (59 percent) of contact centre managers interviewed said that their agents were expected to handle different contact channels simultaneously. Over a fifth (22 percent) said agents were expected to handle different channels, but on separate shifts. The majority of managers (75 percent) said contact centre staff used three to five different software applications to handle customer service enquiries, a number which typically increases as new channels and related applications are introduced. When investigating different contact channels, Corizon noted it found differences in consumer demographics. Of the 2,127 British consumers surveyed, 18-24 year-olds were the most likely to use social media such as Twitter or Facebook, over 65 year-olds were most likely to write letters, while IM was most prevalent amongst 25-34 year olds. Geographical differences were also evident. Corizon discovered that the Welsh were the most likely to use chat and social media for customer service technology with 20 percent using either online chat or social media such as Facebook, Twitter and online forums, whilst Northerners prefer to write, with 74 percent preferring email and 36 percent letters - the highest percentages in both categories. Londoners are slightly more likely to text (5 percent) compared to the rest of the population (3 percent average). Corizon understands the pressures faced by contact centre managers. In previously announced survey results, Corizon found that 60 percent of contact centre agents felt that technology was failing to provide adequate and timely information in customer service situations and 83 percent of consumers surveyed agreed. The number of applications necessary to resolve queries was cited as key cause, with a third of contact centre managers stating the increase in applications and complexity was a significant problem. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]