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Frost & Sullivan Study Outlines Potential for New Support Interaction Optimization Solution Category
Many companies today are striving to take customer support to the next level. Using a combination of technologies, cutting-edge companies are striving for customized multichannel customer care that might encompass voice, screen sharing, cobrowsing, self-service and other channels all in the same remote support transaction, supported by the benefits of performance management applications and analytics. Experts call it support interaction optimization (SIO), and it’s especially well-suited for technical support interactions.
In a recent study, Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), working in conjunction with cloud-based tech support solutions provider Support.com, estimated the value of the SIO market at $1.3 billion globally in 2014, with predictions that the market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.1 percent, doubling to reach $2.6 billion by 2020. Guided resolution is the fastest growing market segment, at a CAGR of 20.2 percent, according to the research.
"There has long been a need for a set of solutions that enable customers and support staff to rapidly and cost-effectively resolve critical and complex issues to customers' satisfaction," said Brendan Read, Industry Analyst for Frost & Sullivan in a statement announcing the new research. "While most vendors have had bits and pieces of SIO capabilities, only now are they seeing the whole picture and connecting the parts to create a complete solution."
To date, many of the capabilities of SIO are offered in various point solutions that may (or may not) be integrated. By combining all the capabilities of SIO into single transactions, companies are better able to manage and solve support issues in less time, with consistent service and improved agent performance, by providing step-by-step guidance and automated technologies integrated with knowledge bases and interactive analytics, according to Frost & Sullivan. The analytics and performance management integration ensures that agents are following best practices, which can boost the quality of customer support while shaving precious minutes off transactions. This will be particularly important going forward as support transactions become more technologically complex. Imagine a future in which nearly all Americans have a wearable technology device (in the same way nearly all Americans carry smartphones today).
"This increasingly connected world presents a growing challenge, but also an opportunity for device-specific technical support," said Nancy Jamison, Principal Analyst for Frost & Sullivan. "SIO solutions that provide guided resolution give agents or self-service applications real-time best practices. In doing so they help companies dramatically cut support costs and increase customer satisfaction."
A complimentary copy of the report is available on Support.com’s Web site.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi