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FinServ, CSP Single-Channel Service Up, Cross-Channel Down, Retail Superior: eGain Study
March 11, 2010
Financial services firms and communications services providers, or “CSPs,” are ‘getting it’ when it comes to providing high quality customer service but only when customers use a single channel and communicate with one agent. They are falling down, though, on cross-channel and cross-agent service: a trend that has ominous implications for satisfaction and retention as more customers use multiple channels and who need to speak, chat or text to subject matter experts.
A new study by eGain showed that the North American financial services sector showed improvement in many customer service channels but declined in cross-channel and cross-agent customer experience in 2010 when compared to 2009.
eGain’s 2010 State of Customer Service Study evaluated multiple aspects of web self-service and contact center customer service of 175 leading enterprises in the U.S. and Canada. These companies are equally distributed across eight sectors: financial services, retail, communications, consumer goods manufacturing, insurance, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals. The financial services sector included companies across banking, brokerage, asset management, and diversified financial services.
Analysts used a mystery shopping approach. Customer service was evaluated as performance along multiple dimensions: choice of communication channels, e-mail response, web self-service, cross-channel consistency, cross-agent consistency (voice channel) and voice customer service. Scores in these metrics were then abstracted to an overall Service Quotient (SQ) on a scale of 0.0 to 4.0, for each of the companies that were assessed as well as for each industry sector and the overall market.
The numeric scores map to the following ratings:
Poor (< 1.0)
Below average (> =1.0 and < 2.0)
Above average (> =2.0 and < 3.0)
Exceptional (3.0 to 4.0)
Here is how financial services racked up in comparing their performance:
· Overall performance of the sector improved slightly from 1.9 in 2009 to 2.0 in 2010
- E-mail customer service received an above average rating of 2.5 in 2010, a slight improvement from the 2009 score of 2.3
- Web self-service and interaction choice both performed below average but improved with ratings of 1.7 and 1.9 in 2010 (versus 1.3 and 1.6 respectively in 2009)
- Multichannel experience took a deep dive, dropping from 1.9 on 2009 to 1.1 this year. 2010 performance bordered on ‘poor’ -- an area of concern, says eGain, as customer communication channels continue to proliferate
- Cross-agent consistency also declined from 2.2 in 2009 to 1.8 in 2010, another big source of customer frustration
“Multichannel customer experience has suffered in this sector due to the recent market meltdown, although service through some specific channels has improved,” said Anand Subramaniam, vice president of Marketing for eGain. “Even so, forward-looking businesses in the sector are adopting a Customer Interaction Hub strategy to unify cross-channel and cross-agent experiences to meet the needs of today’s highly connected customer.”
There has been a similar set of findings for CSPs. Overall performance of the sector improved from 1.9 in 2009 to 2.2 in 2010. Web self-service improved from 2.0 to 2.3 over the same period. Cross-agent consistency did, unlike for financial services increase from 1.7 to 2.2: the most significant improvement. Yet cross-channel experience dropped from 1.2 to 0.7. And surprisingly, e-mail customer service dropped from 2.5 to 2.1.
”While it is a concern that cross-channel experience went from bad to worse in 2010, it also presents an opportunity for smart communications providers to get ahead of competitors by fixing the problem,” said Ashu Roy, Chairman and CEO for eGain. “Leading providers are adopting a CIH strategy to deliver superior multichannel experiences, while improving key business metrics such as subscriber churn, Average Revenue per User, and Average Margin Per User.”
Both financial services and CSPs could learn from retailers. The North American retail sector ranked first overall in customer service in eGain’s latest research. Overall performance for the sector increased significantly from a score of 1.8 in 2009 to 2.3 in 2010, highest among all sectors evaluated. Cross-channel customer experience, while still slightly below average at 1.9 in 2010 was still the highest among all sectors included in the research.
E-mail customer service improved from 2.5 in 2009 to 3.0 in 2010. Web self-service improved from 1.9 to 2.4. Cross-agent consistency did drop slightly from 2.0 to 1.9.
“Retail sector performance was a bright spot in this year's 'mystery shopping' customer service research,” Subramaniam said. “However, channel silos still remain across knowledge, policy, and process. Retailers that break down these silos through a CIH strategy will be better positioned to grow revenues, improve margins, and lead their markets.”
Brendan B. Read is TMCnet’s Senior Contributing Editor. To read more of Brendan’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Kelly McGuire
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