The customer service revolution: what needs to change?

Recent research from LogMeIn shows that satisfaction determinants become more important when consumers engage via mobile. Consider a mobile live chat session, for example.

Across eight satisfaction factors the majority of a worldwide sample said that all factors become consistently more important while engaging in a mobile live chat – no one factor outweighs another in rank of importance.

This suggests that agent speed, brevity and chat window accessibility are equally important for those using mobile to reach a brand or retailer for customer support. This is not the case for call centre satisfaction, so the two channels cannot be measured using the same rubric.

In a multichannel environment, organisations must develop new metrics that are appropriate for each channel and can be measured separately in the context of that channel.

A world of opportunity

When it comes to customer engagement via mobile, some business verticals fare better than others. In our recent research, we asked respondents to tell us how satisfied they were with mobile support engagements across a range of verticals.

The responses showed that consumers are most pleased with banks and financial services companies when it comes to mobile support, closely followed by travel and tourism companies, and finally, shipping and logistics. It would seem that these sectors have adapted more quickly to the mobile revolution and tailored their mobile response accordingly.

Conversely, the lowest ranking verticals when it comes to mobile support include telephone and cable companies, ISPs, and (perhaps ironically) mobile phone providers. Overall, scores across all verticals ranged from just a high of 63% to a low of 47%.

While this is far from ideal, it nonetheless spells a huge opportunity for companies to improve their response models, train up their staff, and provide the right internal tools to improve customer support rates.

Ultimately, by making the necessary internal changes to adopt the latest tools and invest in training, companies will see not only a bottom line increase, but will be able to position themselves to better lead the market.

  • Rob Haskell is Director of Products, BoldChat at LogMeIn