This document discusses the results of a survey that found high levels of customer dissatisfaction with traditional telephone customer service. Key issues included problems not getting resolved, questions not being answered, and customers not feeling valued. The document then proposes that live chat could help address these issues by providing a more immediate and convenient communication channel that is preferred by many customers, especially younger generations. Live chat allows agents to handle multiple conversations simultaneously to improve productivity and reduce costs. It also reduces errors and frustrations compared to phone calls. The document recommends organizations consider implementing live chat to improve customer support and internal processes.

1. Traditional Telephone Customer Service – Still Struggles to Satisfy

2. Survey Results Highlight Challenges Facing Customer Service The current economic crisis and the importance of customer satisfaction and retention, research conducted by YouGov PLC paints a worrying picture of consumers perception of customer service in the UK. Customer dissatisfaction has become the norm!

3. Key Findings Issues aren't resolved or questions are not answered 48% Give Up Using Telephone Customer Service Experience with customer service Only 20% Left feeling satisfied Only 8% feel valued as a customer

4. One third of respondents stated they now expect to get poor service when they call a company’s customer service call centre Only one in twelve consumers reported feeling “valued as a customer” following their contact with customer services. Urgent or serious issues are on the increase Contact centres face more complex and emotionally charged calls

5. Errors Increase Demand 76% contacted customer service because of an error made by the company Avoidable Contact – Organisations can avoid this by taking greater care with their internal policies and procedures 53% stated that avoidable contact had increased over the last 12 months 34% don't get issues resolved first time

6. Potential Increase in Cost –Coupled with a Decrease in Revenue Call centres represent a significant expense the continual loop of unresolved issues only serve to create additional expense. Businesses need to consider the potential impact on revenue of upsetting and possibly loosing customers by not resolving their issues

7. Human Contact 67% of respondents prefer communicating with a human for Urgent Issues 45% prefer On-line self help systems for non urgent issues

8. An Emotional Issue 26% rated call centre hold ups as their number one 1 in 4 loose their temper with an agent during a customer service call ¼ postpone dealing with an issue because they cant face dealing with customer service

9. Companies Take Note Satisfaction with a contact centre has become the leading indicator of customer loyalty and word of mouth recommendations findings show that 94% of satisfied customer will do business with the same company again and 91% will recommend them to others Only 62% of customers that had a bad customer service experience said they would continue as a customer and only 39% would recommend the company afterwards

10. Generation Y 25-34 Years olds is seen as the “me, right now” generation with a thirst for instant communication and hyper-efficient service, patience is not a character trait Generation Y are most likely to be frustrated or annoyed with poor customer service and are also most likely to switch, they are also the most influential in terms of word of mouth Generation Y represents not only represents the largest of the demographic subsets but also the future of customer service

11. Systems & Procedures 29% of an agents time talking to customers 71% split between:- Entering Data Making notes Seeking Advice Reading Numerous Information Screens

12. Companies Worst Effected by Poor Customer Support

13. WhosOn Addressing the Issues Raised WhosOn is a software application that enables the online engagement of website visitors in real-time Providing real time assistance with live chat helps improve customer support and online conversions Inbuilt visitor tracking provides invaluable analytics to identify and refine your online offering

14. Live Chat – Improving Customer Support An Alternative to telephone support Email and Telephone support have traditionally been the norm in a contact centre environment Consumers are demanding more and more ways to contact an organisation and gain an instantaneous response Live Chat provides a preferred instant two way communication enabling enquiries to be answered more effectively and in a timely manner

15. Generation Y 25-34 Year Olds “me, right now” demand instant communication, hyper efficient service The future of customer service Live Chat provides a preferred method of communication for Generation Y as an alternative to phone or email. A generation used to instant messaging, status updates and SMS Text these are the early adopters of Live Chat but they will also form part of the largest customer base

16. Less Prone to Errors Errors Increase costs adding to avoidable contact Avoidable contact increasing Live Chat helps reduce avoidable contact, clear instructions are written within a chat window an end user can request a copy of the chat transcript to refer back to should they need to in the future Agents can push specific web pages or send documents directly within a chat Agents can use remote control capabilities if required to take control of an end users PC so they can assist directly with support enquiries or help with form completion Agents can easily access chat histories for any returning visitors instantaneously gaining an insight into the particular end user request without having to access an alternative system, improving the relationship with the customer in real-time

17. Improving Productivity & Reducing Costs Unresolved issues increase call centre costs Live Chat helps by improving staff productivity not only can agents continue to take calls they can also handle chats at the same time Unlike a standard call an agent can handle multiple chats at once enabling contact centres to reduce wait times ultimately improving customer satisfaction

18. Human Contact People prefer human contact Live Chat helps it is a two way text based conversation between a physical operator and an end user. Unlike a knowledge base or FAQ system end users are able to get specific answers to specific questions

19. No Emoticon Contact centres facing increasingly emotionally charged calls Customers loosing tempers Support agents also become unhappy Live chat helps as emoticons can’t be expressed as easily via a text based conversation This also helps raise employee moral with the contact centre as they are less exposed to the frustrations expressed by customers, often found during a standard telephone call

20. System Integration Agents when they have finished a call have to record the data gained in various systems often referring to scribbled inaccurate notes They may need to seek Advice or gain literature from various sources Live chat helps it can integrate with selected CRM packages instantly creating new records or adding to an existing record Rather than referring to different sets of documentation using the knowledge base within the live chat console operators can access the information they require in the form of canned responses Live chat gives the ability for agents to insert files or images and send these directly to the end users There is less data repetition chats can be saved printed or archived into the CRM these can then be accessed at a later date or when a visitor returns to the site

21. Summary Any organisation running a service desk in a customer support environment should begin to look further at Live Chat as a way of improving customer support and improving internal processes. Once implemented organisations can significantly reduce their costs and more importantly improve customer service. For more information about WhosOn please visit. www.whoson.com