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Aspect Study Personifies Company Customer Service Types

By Paula Bernier
Executive Editor, TMC

Aspect (News - Alert) Software today took the wraps off a new study that presents five ways companies approach and execute on customer service. Called Aspect Customer Care Personas, the study is intended to be used by companies as a tool for self-assessment.

The study identifies what Aspect refers to as five company customer service personas. That includes casualists, which have the best intentions but the worst in just about everything else; honchos, which are heavy on executive leadership but light on strategic effectiveness; selfies, which leverage a lot of technology but are lacking in metrics; sticklers, which are all about policy; and traditionalists, which deliver high-touch customer service but don’t do much in the way of leveraging technology.

None of the above are perfect but they are useful profiles to consider so businesses can analyze where they fit in the mix and where there is room for improvement, according to Aspect. Because customer service is becoming the new marketing, says Joe Gagnon, senior vice president and general manager of cloud solutions at Aspect Software, it’s important for companies to assess their strengths and weaknesses on the customer care front, and to create strategies that strike the right balance for them and their customers. That way, organizations will have a higher chance of success in the new world in which always-connected and highly social customers command a great deal of control.

As for the hard data, the study reveals that 53 percent of companies use technology to replace customer service representatives, and 47 percent expect that by 2020 the human element of customer service will be completely replaced. Meanwhile, a study of consumers by Aspect showed 73 percent of respondents want companies to offer more self-service options, but 75 percent believe self-service efforts are motivated primarily by organizations’ desire to prevent them from talking to customer service representatives in real time.

Aspect says that although it’s important to offer self-service options, for which there is growing demand, companies should do so with the goal of addressing customer needs rather than simply lowering their costs.  And it pointed out that 96 percent of respondents in Aspect’s consumer study said they are more likely to patronize companies with strong customer services and that 72 percent have cut ties with businesses that failed them in terms of customer service.

Edited by Maurice Nagle

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