Service Providers Have an Opportunity to Substantially Reduce Call Center Traffic with Proactive and Improved Self-Care Options

Amdocs, a provider of customer experience systems, announced the results of a global survey that highlights the critical business importance of effective self-service channels for resolving customer issues. The survey highlights a massive opportunity for service providers to reduce call center costs and to improve customer experience by creating a more complete, consistent and accessible self-service capability, while leveraging customer insight to proactively prevent and eliminate calls.

Key survey findings:

-- Smartphones still present a challenge: the majority of smartphone users encounter issues related to device or service during the first year of use. 82 percent asked their service provider at least one question, while 50 percent had two or more questions.

-- Online support can be improved: 75 percent of surveyed consumers said they would prefer to use online support if it were reliable, but only 37 percent currently even try to use self-service options, which are often perceived as inaccurate or incomplete. An overwhelming 91 percent say they would use a single, online knowledge base if it were available and tailored to their needs.

-- Social media channels are under-used by service providers: more than half of all respondents (54 percent) have already complained directly to their mobile service provider through social media channels, but 73 percent of these respondents said they did not receive satisfactory answers.

-- The call center picks up the pieces: this lack of satisfactory online support is driving large numbers of consumers to call centers, wasting valuable resources. More than 40 percent of customers contact a call center after they cannot find answers to their question via self-service and up to 50 percent of "How do I ...?" calls could be deflected to self-care channels.

-- Customers expect proactive care: 96 percent of surveyed consumers expect problem notification without having to ask, preempting calls to a call center. For example, should a problem emerge with email setup on a particular handset, all owners should be proactively sent the solution, without them having to call in to the service provider.

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