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Consumers today are more socially aware of products and services, and customer retention is critical to profitability since acquiring a new customer is the most expensive phase of the relationship. The challenge businesses face is how to proactively serve their customer in a mutually satisfactory way, with customers feeling empowered to use self- service tools and programs. Voice of the Customer (VOC) programs have a very attractive return on investment story, with organizations seeing revenue increases from customer referrals of 7.6% and a 6.3% reduction in the average cost in customer contact.1 Many of these programs solicit feedback from customers who have interacted with an agent, but there are two deficiencies with this narrow focus. First, this may not be the majority of customer contacts; with the enterprise seeking higher margins and lower cost of contact, the overwhelming emphasis is on higher containment and more aggressive use of self-service application enablement, so agent and customer contacts are simply just the tip of the iceberg. Second, psychological studies and research have shown that consumers modify their answers in particular scenarios based on perceived consequences, whether they be in compensation and credits to their accounts or the reaction of the human agent they interacted with. The role of the IVR is, in most instances, to “front end” the agent and hopefully enable customers to retrieve information or implement changes to their accounts easily. So, what is the impact the IVR is having on customer service and the customer experience? According to some research, the top two issues resulting in a negative contact
_Voice of the Customer (VOC) programs have a very attractive return on investment story, with organizations seeing revenue increases from customer referrals of 7.6% and a 6.3% reduction in the average cost in customer contact. 1
center experiences, accounting for 77% of the cases studied, had to do with customers having to repeat information to the IVR. 2 So, in this instance, are agents being set up for failure? Is the onus on the agent to recover this CX experience? Does the VOC program even cover these instances? In yet another study, almost 50% of those interviewed had a negative opinion on the value of an IVR and how it’s deployed to assist them. The outcome from this research points out that the younger demographic is more willing to use a self-service IVR platform. 3
1. Minkara, O., & Pinder Jr, A., Voice of the Customer: Big Data as a Strategic Advantage (Harte Hanks, 2014). 2. Schwitters, S., IVR Limbo: The Customer Experience Killer (Retrieved from Spoken.com: http://www.spoken.com/blog/topic/survey, 2015, April 2). 3. Katz, J. P., Human Touch and the Customer Service Experience (Center For Research on the Information Society, 2015).
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