Hello Human,
Welcome to the March edition of our "More Human" CX industry newsletter. As in our previous editions, the objective is to highlight key developments and trends within the CX industry to provide inspiration and strategic guidance to CX leaders and contact center professionals.
More than ever, Customer Centricity as an overarching company objective is on every decision makers mind. While companies are still operating within the economic framework of the pandemic, the successful rollout of various vaccines has brought hope around the world that we are finally on a path to overcome the pandemic. This is the reason why most researchers are projecting a significant economic recovery in 2021. After seeing the biggest decline since the great depression, Morgan Stanley Research projects in their 2021 outlook that the V-shaped recovery in the US is now entering a new self-sustaining phase and is on track to deliver a stellar 5.9% GDP growth in 2021. The majority of the growth will materialize in the second half of the year and will play out in lockstep with all major economies around the world. The wave of economic activity will be carried by the most impacted sectors such as Travel & Hospitality, Dining, Entertainment and of course traditional Retail all gasping to cope with satisfying pent-up demand.
What will this mean for the Customer service industry? Below are the major trends we see going forward:
1.) Consumers expectations have gone Digital:
The pandemic has catapulted all Digital trends forward and there is no turning back. Regardless of a shift-back towards pre-pandemic life, the convenience and flexibility of a digital customer experience is here to stay. We believe that the customer experience has benefited tremendously from this development as it has resulted in a wider availability of more efficient and more "liked" contact methods. Customers are quickly getting used to the efficiencies presented by instant gratification channels such as Chat, Messaging and Social Media. At the same time, brands are taking advantage of the wider availability of insights via powerful QA tools. In place of "noreply@business" emails, businesses are able to deploy interactive digital platforms for remote customer engagement. This trend has created the necessity for brands to put customer experience at the heart of their digital operations. We'll continue to see more customer insights being captured in the contact center and being deployed strategically elsewhere in the business. See Forbes' 11 Customer Experience Predictions for 2021.
2.) The increase in e-commerce driven Customer Service volume is here to stay:
US Department of Commerce Data shows a quantum leap in ecommerce activity which share of total retail has jumped 5.5% from 15.8% in 2019 to 21.8% in 2020. Since ecommerce retail has a significantly higher order/contact ratio due to the added delivery component, customer service volume increased dramatically. McKinsey research revealed more customers plan to continue buying online even after the crisis has ended. Zendesk found that even though tickets are stabilizing, the average number of requests clients are receiving, is at least 16% higher than pre-COVID-19. Customer engagement teams should expect that trend to continue for the weeks and months ahead due to the lasting shift from traditional retail to e-commerce. However, with traditional retail recovering, we do not forecast another leap this year but expect a leveling out on current levels. In addition, it is expected that the rebound of Travel & Hospitality will add another tidal wave of volume in the second half of the year.
3.) The shift to remote Customer Service organizations will continue:
According to Gartner, pre-outbreak of the pandemic, nearly 7 in 10 (68%) of customer service and support organizations worked from traditional call centers, and less than 10% of team members worked from home. That ratio has now completely flipped, as going forward, 71% of contact centers will at least handle some share of their overall volume with remote based agents. COVID-19 also had a huge impact on efficient agent on-boarding and management. For many companies, the pandemic has also sparked a shift in thinking from using a mix of off-shore/on-shore call centers to managing domestic operations only. The spread of COVID-19 in popular offshore destinations such as the Philippines and India significantly reduced workforce availability as a reliable work-from-home option is not easily feasible in those countries.
4.) Brand Ambassador Empowerment will remain critical:
As a direct result of the unprecedented increase in customer service volume, it is important that all customer service team members are empowered to handle all aspects of customer inquiries without the need to involve supervisors or other team members. Forester emphasized in their predictions for 2021, the need for a more empathetic service experience dominated their thinking. The purpose of customer service is no longer just to alleviate inconveniences; it is to provide fundamental and necessary services for consumers devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ensuring your team members have the skills, trust, and empathy, will allow them to make the right decisions to deliver excellent customer service even after the direct impacts of the pandemic have disappeared.
5.) The future of CX programs are Predictive Insights tools:
Finally, we wanted to point your attention towards a new McKinsey report - The Future of Customer Care - which discusses the disadvantages of popular backward looking survey based CX programs and presents an argument how forward looking data-driven, predictive systems will be the future of superior customer-experience.
As always, please reach out with any questions or comments, I would be grateful for any feedback and suggestions for this publication.
We would like to wish all our readers a successful March and will hopefully starting to see the transition from a reactive pandemic-driven environment to a business climate spurred by optimism and innovation.
Cheers,
Othmar Müller von Blumencron
Vice President Sales & Marketing
908 King Street, Suite 400 W
Alexandria, VA 22314
+1-703-348-2236 (office)
+1-703-926-7691 (mobile)
oblumencron@VIPdeskConnect.com
