A good customer service is the most popular tool for customer-centric organizations. Much powerful than any promotional engagements, a great customer experience can go a long way in determining if the customers are going to shop again or simply switch to the competitors.
Many statistics can help you understand the effectiveness of your customer service. Below are 10 important statistics that you need to take note of while analysing your company’s customer service:
10 Crucial Customer Service Statistics for Contact Centers
1) Cost of poor customer service: There is a hefty bill attached to poor customer service and not all organizations realise this. As per research in the U.S., companies can lose as much as $41 billion due to poor customer service. There are multiple facets to a poor customer service experience, so this statistic should be carefully monitored to dissect each area of improvement (in customer service) and for ensuring that corrective actions are taken accordingly.
2) Cost of phone support: The good old phone support is often ignored, especially in this age of social media. However, as per reports, phone support should be the number one channel for call centres. Majority of customers opine that it is much easier for them to pick up the phone and converse, rather than choosing any other electronic medium. Thus, the customer service data obtained by studying this channel should be tracked wisely to allow companies to understand how much more/ less should they invest in a phone support.
3) Interaction over social media channels: The power of social media is phenomenal and so, call centre agents should have the expertise in this area. However, it should not be overdone as many organisations are still not social-savvy. Capturing the sum total interaction over social mediums like FB and Twitter can provide invaluable insights to call centres about how much they should scale up/ down their social presence.
4) Failure to respond over social channels: In connection to the above-mentioned point, it should be noted that even if social media might not be at the prime choice for customers, it is none the less an important area of engagement. Failure to respond over social networks would not only leave the customer dejected and ignored, but also leaves the comments (untouched) for the world to see and talk about. Call centres should, thus, monitor such engagements and study the impact of this failure to respond on their reputation.
5) Experience of online customer service: Another important statistic is to measure the customer satisfaction across all online channels. This is because when a customer is upset over the online medium, he/ she has the potential to badmouth about it and take the topic viral. This can result in immense damage to the brand image.
6) Percentage of recommendations: Nothing surpasses a recommendation. However, that comes when customers are happy and satisfied. The Data concerning the amount of recommendations can provide valuable insights about the performance of the call centre.
7) Percentage of abandonments: Likewise, unhappy customers are more likely to leave the brand and shift their loyalties to the competitors. Thus, the number of abandonments due to poor service is also an important metric to capture. This is undoubtedly the most feared statistic but at the same time, it also provides much-needed insights on future scope of improvement.
8) Multi-channel interaction: Seamless customer service is the call of the hour. Thus, call centre executives should make themselves available across web, mobile, tablet, email, etc., to cater to most of the customer expectations. How many interactions occur over which channel is a data not to be missed.
9) Number of loyal customers: A loyal customer is worth a million. However, in the mad race of acquiring & luring new customers, contact centres often ignore the issue of the loyal customers. This leads to a decrease in the number of loyal customers – this is a data which is very valuable to capture.
10) Ratio of low price to low service level: Low price call out is a good marketing strategy, but when that results in low service quality, customers are bound to get irritated. This often leads to customers leaving the brand or not choosing to shop again. The call centres should also capture such a shift in behaviour, so that timely actions can be taken and customer loss is reduced.
Performance metrics can provide great feedback and holistic view on what kind of customer support is being provided by the organization. Such statistics are like well-detailed research which save a lot of time & energy for future strategies when it comes to amplifying the quality of call centres.
However, the data captured can only be truly useful when any actionable insights can be driven out of it. Therefore, a call center should not only strive to get the most relevant data but also make the most of it.
