Many companies running call centers are not doing enough to ensure their technology solutions are providing a high-quality experience for their customers.
That’s the latest word from Empirix, which recently sponsored a study revealing a large number of firms are taking a ‘do-nothing’ approach to their customer experience strategies.
One out of five of the 1,000 international technical professionals polled by LinkedIn for the research said they only upgrade their system when customers begin to complain, or just pay attention to major overhauls.
The testing procedures put in place by firms often leave a lot to be desired. Only 18 percent of respondents use automated testing, despite such testing offering a more consistent and reliable experience.
Most companies, however, still conduct manual testing where employees randomly evaluate different aspects of performance. Some 62 percent of professionals admitted to using this approach.
A lack of knowledge about the voice quality of their contact centers could also be a serious failing for many firms.
This is one of the most important aspects of a strong service, as poor quality forces representatives to repeat themselves. In extreme cases, customers could even have to hang up and redial, requiring the interaction to start over again, which wastes time and prevents consumers from being served efficiently.
Despite this, 68 percent for respondents said they have never tested the voice quality of their contact center solutions.
This lack of testing has more repercussions that just poor customer experience.
Empirix said systems that drop calls, provide representatives with the wrong information, incorrectly route calls and offer poor voice quality mean employees take longer to resolve each issue, which adds unnecessary costs. Customer dissatisfaction with the process also leads to higher churn rates.
“The survey identified a huge disconnect between investing in customer service technology and knowing how to realize the maximum return on that investment,” said Tim Moynihan, vice-president of marketing at Empirix.
He added that companies are often not making quality assurance part of their thinking, despite large-scale investments in hardware and software.
“There seems to be a lot of talk about superior customer service, but this survey shows an inconsistent approach to testing and monitoring these systems,” Moynihan said.