March 15, 2012
Webinar - Quality Customer Service Across All Channels is What Really Counts
By Stefania Viscusi, Assignment Desk, Content Management
Customer service remains a critical focus for businesses today looking to succeed. Considering the current economic scenario, and the fact that customers are spending and doing more with less, the need for quality service interactions with customers – no matter which channel, becomes even more vital.
Multi-channel communications including e-mail, chat, social media, and the call center are especially important today because businesses can increase satisfaction while also reducing operational costs.
In fact, service is so important today many thought leaders claim it needs to be a priority focus at an executive level. Sumair Dutta, research director at Aberdeen (News - Alert) Group, recommends someone at a higher level to have an integrated view across all of the channels a chief service officer. This way they can really merge together marketing and sales – an area where the best-in-class focus is being put now.
Everyone in a company is delivering service – whether you are in product development or finance, organizations understanding those interdependencies are falling more and more into the best in class category, Sumair said.
The impact of the economy is also driving the need for businesses to focus on customer service. “With the economic climate, with the unemployment market, things are obviously unstable, and have driven the increased focus on service and support.”
Speaking on the importance of multichannel call center needs, Sumair noted that while we can reduce costs by utilizing the lower cost channel of communication for most of our requests, the most important piece to taking on a multichannel support focus is the increase in service agent effectiveness to be gained.
Top multichannel areas right now include Live Chat, Social Media, E-Service and Contact Center channels for customer contact.
Aberdeen Group recently looked at 180 service professionals and identified patterns and metrics that distinguished best-in-class companies from the average performers. The results of this survey and the topic of delivering quality service across all channels was the topic of this Kana Software Webinar.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
