Global information and communications technology (ICT) services and solutions provider Dimension Data (News - Alert) recently released the results of its Global Contact Center Benchmarking Report for the 2013-2014 period. The primary finding of this report is that the contact center will need a “new caliber of technology and resources” going forward in order to keep clients engaged and employees happy.
This information was gathered from a survey of 817 participants, covering 11 business sectors in 79 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Australia, and the Middle East & Africa.
Key findings of the report include the fact that customers seem to be increasingly dissatisfied with their contact center experiences, especially among Generations X and Y, as they now demand a choice of interactions, including Web chat, smartphone apps and social media. Web chat, in particular, was identified as an important way to remedy this dissatisfaction.
However, contact centers are faced with another problem: Front-line customer service staffers are leaving their positions at a growing rate.
Unfortunately this problem seems to be a direct result of contact centers transforming into cross-channel multimedia hubs. This is because the transformation is making contact center agents’ jobs more complex, forcing them to deal with channels they weren’t hired or trained to deal with. As such, contact center absenteeism is three times higher than that of contact center management, while agent attrition is up 26 percent over 2012.
"The pace of technology adoption by end users is driving contact centers to evolve and gather speed, which means the complexity of transactions has increased. Organizations haven't kept pace with technology and are operating outdated systems," said Andrew McNair, Dimension Data's head of Global Benchmarking, in a statement. "There's no doubt that if management does not plan for increased contact center agent competency, and develop skills across multiple channels and disciplines, these organizations will fail."
Customer satisfaction is also down this year compared to last, while contact resolution rates have also dropped. Customers now have a 75 percent chance of having their issue resolved when contacting a service provider.
Dimension Data’s solution to all of these issues is for contact centers to not just evolve their operations quickly, but properly. The result of rushing the process seems to be this drop in customer satisfaction and employee happiness.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson