Findings of Middle East customer service experience survey

DUBAI, UAE: Interactive Intelligence Group Inc., a global provider of unified IP business communications software and services, has released findings of its Middle East customer service experience survey. Following a global survey done during the early part of this year, the regional survey of 121 contact centre professionals was conducted during June and July 2013.

Several key findings of the survey included the following:

* Not surprisingly, the large majority of respondents (78.5 percent) rated customer experience to be extremely important while 18.2 percent stated it to be important.

* First call resolution, professionalism and a timely response are perceived to be the most valued parameters in customer interactions in that particular order. This is in line with the global survey results which reveal that a knowledgeable representative and a timely response are the most valuable components of a great service experience.

* Over three fourths (76 percent) of the survey respondents already have a customer service strategy in place, though surprisingly there were still 24 percent that either did not have a strategy or were not aware of such strategies.

* Organizations perceive the contact centre to be vital to providing excellent customer service. 66.1 percent stated it to be very important and 24 percent agreed that the contact centre was somewhat important in this regard.

* Not surprisingly then, the contact centre remains at the heart of most organizations' strategies and defines the customer experience for 51.2 percent of respondents. Sales and Marketing departments also exert influence and 33.1 percent of participants stated that IT too is increasingly playing a role.

* Companies tend to use a combination of metrics to measure the success of their customer service campaigns. Of these, the most popular methods are Customer Feedback Forms (57.9 percent) and Customer Satisfaction Score or CSAT (43 percent), while Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs and Customer Effort Scores (CES) are employed to a lesser degree (each less than 15 percent).

* Organizations also use a combination of technologies to support customer service. These include Customer Relationship Management (70.2 percent), customer feedback tools (52.9 percent), call and voice recording (35.5 percent), social media analytics/monitoring (34.7 percent) and computer telephony integration or CTI (33.9 percent).

* While email and telephone remain the primary as well as the most time consuming channels for customer service, social media engagement is now supported by more than one third of businesses and almost a quarter have now begun to offer customer support though mobile applications. This indicates the progress of the region compared to that of the globe wherein social media and mobile app support account for only 8 percent and 7 percent, respectively, of the time organizations dedicate to customer service.

* This emphasis being given to social media will no doubt work in the favour of regional businesses as customers are now more inclined to sharing their experiences with each other through social channels. Companies should be further motivated by the findings of the global study which has shown that more customers (54 percent) are inclined to sharing details of an excellent interaction through social media than those who would do so in the case of a horrendous experience (36 percent).

* Complete integration across all customer touch-points has been achieved by only 28.9 percent of respondents while over half claim to have this implemented to lesser degree.

* Organizations can also leverage customer service to generate new revenue streams. Also, 38 percent of respondents believe customers in the Middle East will be willing to pay for reasonably priced support and 18.2 percent agree that payment is indeed justified for high level services. The global survey indicates that this is already being implemented worldwide with over half (53 percent) of organizations offering their customers a higher level of service for a premium fee.