Voice Self-Service

Voice Self-Service- New Opportunities?

Consumers are making fewer but longer calls to organisations as Internet use rises, quick checks of bank balances are being made on mobile phone, products are being price scanned on to mobiles, outbound SMS messages are being sent to remind consumers of events and people are collaborating on the internet to solve product and service issues. So, what are the implications for customer service?

VSS- OPPORTUNITIES FOR ORGANISATIONS TO BALANCE COST CONTROL WITH THE NEEDS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

There is an accelerating communication channel called Voice Self-Service. This promises opportunities for organisations to balance cost control with the needs of customer service. Research we compeleted for BT Global Services and Nortel shows that Voice Self-Service is much preferred by consumers to the off-shoring of call centres. Rates of dissatisfaction with off-shored call centres are particularly high (78%) among the UK consumers in our sample.

Voice Self-Service is also chosen by the consumers as one of the favoured ways for organisations to reduce costs. Our research found that consumers are able to identify which types of interactions are suited to Voice Self-Service. This was explored across four different sectors with participants responding positively to undertaking tasks such as checking bank balances or getting store opening hours in this way. Another interesting finding is that customers appear happy to accept outbound Voice Self-Service when they consider it to be justifiable, e.g. to confirm the delivery of goods (80%) or to receive information about utility supplies (77%).

But as with all technology implementation the success of VSS will depend on organisations finding interaction applications which are appropriate. Trying to do to much too fast will likely lead to failure and customer frustration.

Fragvergence

Voice Self-Service is part of a wider phenomenon in the emerging world of customer contact: Fragvergence. (A reference to Sam Smith at BBC and others is undoubtedly due here) While organisations may hope they can force customers to use one channel because it is more efficient (like Ryanair), the reality is that more complex channel offerings will be needed to meet the demands of customers who appear to vary their approach according to purpose.

As part of the analysis, we categorized the UK and US online communities according to their attitudes to customer contact. The key findings were that while 30% preferred the phone to e-mail, 27% claimed to be equally at ease with the phone and Internet services. A further 24%, on the other hand, preferred the Internet to the phone. The remaining 19% also indicated a preference for the Internet but felt that ultimately, the method of contacting an organisation should be their choice. Consumers say that over the past 3-5 years, service and price have become more important to them when dealing with organisations while brand is less valued. This poses real challenges for organisations to extend their channel offering but also to maintain limits on costs. Organisations need to adopt a range of techniques to manage the evolving world of Fragvergence.