Zendesk’s 2022 CX Trends Report reveals customer expectations of contact centres are reaching new highs. Unfortunately, service functions are struggling to keep up.
Indeed, 48% of UK consumers say that their customer service expectations have increased over the past year. A further 44% would switch to a competitor after just one bad experience.
Consequently, it is easy to assume that evolving the customer service proposition would sit at the top of many businesses’ wish lists. Yet, such a trend appears to be amiss.
Revealing statistics - such as 48% of customers believe that service is just a mere afterthought of most businesses – perhaps suggest a lack of investment in the service function.
As such, a gap between consumer expectations and company actions emerges.
Commenting on the status quo, Matthias Göhler, EMEA Chief Technology Officer at Zendesk, says:
Customers are noticing this gap, and they're making purchase decisions based on the service they receive. That is perhaps the clearest signal that rapid change is needed at companies.
These findings arise at a time when the role of the traditional contact centre manager is changing. Many businesses have even given managers "customer experience" job titles in the hope of reconnecting the service function with the broader CX strategy.
As such, contact centres are engaging in many new initiatives. These include kickstarting root-cause analysis programmes, expanding the digital channel mix, and building automation strategies.
Projects of this ilk are often highly beneficial to broader CX. Yet, there are only a certain number of hours in the day. Busy contact centre leaders seem to be struggling to balance their contribution to CX development while improving operational performance.
The notion that many customers view service as an “afterthought” adds momentum to this idea. Yet, it also indicates that many companies must reimagine their perceptions of contact centres.