Contact Centers and Customers are Getting an Overall Lackluster Performance from Self-Service Strategies

The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) has released its 2010 research report, Self-Service and the Multichannel Contact Center including key findings and study results. More than 400 contact center professionals from various industries and all over the world participated.

The study results show that both contact centers and customers are getting an overall lackluster performance from self-service strategies. A few key findings from the research study include:

-- More than three quarters of respondents (79.5%) indicated that their customer care operations provide customers self-service opportunities.

-- Taking into account the respondent data on the success of self-service in reducing operating costs and increasing customer satisfaction, we can confidently infer that at least some of the trouble in meeting service level goals can be attributed to the failure of self-service strategies to truly address and meet customer needs.

-- The main drivers respondents cited for implementing a self-service strategy for customers were operating cost reductions (83.4%) and meeting customer demand for service options (74.3%).

-- Over half (64%) of respondents don't know if or when a customer has tried to self-serve but then opted for a live representative.

-- Among the tools contact centers use to support Web self-service channels, in particular, leaders emerged: issue tracking (53%), knowledge management (44.6%) and service management tools (42.3%).

-- A troubling 43.6%, almost half of respondents, don't measure customer feedback on their centers' self-service channels.

-- Many survey participants appear to be following some good practices in agent recruitment and hiring for the multichannel environment, with more than half (64.4%) of respondents using the Web (online career sites, company website, etc.) more for recruitment and screening applicants early for the skills needed for multiple contact channels.

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