Telecom tops poor customer service experience, according to a Verint study.
The percentage of consumers that experience poor customer service is high across all surveyed industries in Asia Pacific: financial services (51 percent), utilities (51 percent), hotel and travel (51 percent), retail (59 percent) and telecoms (64 percent).
The survey focused on the state of customer service in the Asia Pacific region including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Australia and Indonesia.
Consumers in all countries—including emerging markets where there is a common price is king perception—place a premium on good customer service, with only 23 percent of consumers valuing price over service.
Roughly 45 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for better service, particularly in China and India.
Consumers are using multiple communications channels when sharing their good or bad service experiences.
While traditional channels—such as phone, in person and email—are typically used to share with family and close friends, rising social channels like Facebook, Twitter and blogs are reaching even wider audiences.
53 percent of consumers will share their experiences on social media, blogs and leave comments on company websites with 42 percent using social networking sites (e.g., Facebook); 27 percent use micro-blog sites (e.g., Twitter); and 24 percent will share experiences on blogs.
Further, more consumers expressed their desire to share positive rather than negative experiences at a rate of 41 percent for positive experiences compared to 32 percent for negative experiences.
Companies that can deliver a superior customer experience have an army of customer ambassadors positively increasing their brand awareness into the market via social channels.
“Companies that can proactively deliver a superior customer experience by listening and acting on the voice of the customer can gain competitive advantage in the market,” said Ady Meretz, president APAC, Verint.
This research also identifies two main drivers of poor consumer service experience: taking too long to resolve problems (21 percent) and unknowledgeable staff that can’t help (20 percent).
Additionally, consumers who didn’t have their problems resolved in the first contact were less satisfied than those that spent more time with service representatives working through issues without having to call back or visit again. For instance, in the retail sector, the study found that if customers had to call back to solve their problems, satisfaction dropped another 10 percent.
Other factors leading to a poor service experience from the survey included: waiting too long to be serviced, receiving rude or unfriendly service and experiencing inflexible procedures.
picture source: themobileindian.com
