Contact Center Satisfaction Index Indicates Slipping Customer Service Rates

The contact center is crucial to customer service efforts, this we know. It serves as a hub for customer engagement, meant to be an incubator for customer loyalty. Central to success is customer satisfaction, and recent reports illustrate that contact centers are struggling in this department.

CFI Group’s 2019 Contact Center Satisfaction Index (CCSI) reports a three percent drop. Measured on a scale of 1-100, 68 may be passing in school, but when it comes to customer service it does not meet the mark.

Call center scheduling and staffing needs are a strong start to ensuring exceptional customer service, but the report mentions three other areas in desperate need of attention: making chat available for mobile devices, empowering agents to solve problems and designing better IVR flow to reach live agents.

"In the world of self-service, customers now reserve only the toughest problems for the contact center agents," says Sheri Petras, CEO of CFI Group. "Many simple questions are now handled by the customer on the company website, saving the complicated, frustrating questions for contact center agents. Organizations must implement the systems and processes needed to provide effective online self-serve tools to customers, while also ensuring that customers easily can reach an effective and empowered agent when needed."

The contact center is a concert of people, processes and technology coming together to build customer loyalty through satisfaction. Challenge accepted?

Edited by Maurice Nagle