Contact centres sitting on unearthed pots of gold

UK businesses are sitting on an untapped well of customer insight in their contact centres - information that has the potential to provide vital missing intelligence

This powerful insight could inform everything from customer service strategy and product development to improved customer experiences, according to the Customer Contact Association (CCA).

However, according to a recent survey of senior customer service and contact centre management carried out by the CCA and sponsored by Verint just one in five businesses are satisfied they are using their customer data to its full potential.

The majority of respondents to the CCA study believed that they could gain more insights from the customer service data they hold (voiced by 79 percent of respondents), and 82 percent agreed that insights gleaned from customer interactions could influence the products their companies provide.

The study also suggests customer service is currently not evaluated in a meaningful way. While nearly nine respondents in 10 (87 percent) use abandonment rates and 79 percent use call waiting times as key measures, perceptions of their value to the business are far lower.
An astounding 63 percent of respondents said they evaluate customer satisfaction via their complaints procedure. In comparison, only two in five use professionally-organised third-party surveys to gauge satisfaction.

The study further places the disconnect between customer service and the rest of the business into sharp focus. Less than half the respondents (42 percent) agreed their management board understood customer service, and a similar proportion (49 percent) said their executives' compensation was not linked to customer satisfaction metrics. One respondent in three was unable to quantify the saving in financial terms of a 10 percent reduction in the amount of calls taken by the contact centre. 

David Parcell, managing director and corporate officer EMEA, Verint, says, "There is huge potential in the information companies capture every day-insights into how customers are feeling, the suggestions they have for making things better, and the sources of frustration which can fast become a brand threat via social media. This survey clearly shows businesses are striving to better understand their customers, with 73 percent wanting to know how they could make customers happier."

Commenting on the study, Anne Marie Forsyth, chief executive, CCA, notes, "Companies can now expect customers to engage with them via the full range of communications media - including today's growing and wide-reaching social media channels. When it comes to the customer experience, it's no longer sufficient to draw conclusions from structured data and simple metrics alone.

“Organisations dealing with today's complex, rapidly evolving communications environments must adopt new strategies. They need to gather, analyse and interpret all customer data to extract intelligence which can drive business decisions, improve the customer experience, and deliver on growth and profitability objectives."