[ THE SURVEY ] SHOWS AN INDUSTRY IN FLUX, WHERE... CUSTOMERS HAVE A GROWING PREFERENCE TO TALK WITH HUMAN AGENTS...
FIGURE 3 LEVEL OF AUTOMATION USED IN WEB CHAT, 2019- 2024
Supporting this finding, survey respondents report that on average, around 22 % of web chats require another channel – usually telephony – to resolve satisfactorily.( SEE FIGURE 3)
The stalling of the move away from live telephony to digital channels can also be seen as a factor of customer preference.
Recent years have seen great strides being made in the use of chatbots or virtual assistants to handle web chats, whether as a front-end gathering of relevant information before passing it to a live agent, or in more sophisticated cases trying to handle the entire interaction.
Whereas only 15 % of web chats had any automation involved in 2019, this has grown to 39 % at the end of 2024. This is mainly as a result of initial handling by automated chatbots which may then hand off to live agents where appropriate, although fully-automated AI-enabled web chat has increased significantly as well.
However, the past two years have seen little increase in the level of automation( a pattern that has also been seen in U. K. contact centers). It may well be that most of the chatbots being used are static rules-based applications, and can only move onto the next level if generative AI applications are used and businesses organize their data in a way that enables the bot to provide more sophisticated and personalized service to customers, rather than generic and limited functionality.
FIGURE 4 CUSTOMER PREFERENCE FOR PHONE CHANNEL, 2018- 2024
LIVE VOICE IS STILL THE GOLD STANDARD OF SERVICE
One of the main factors driving a customer’ s choice of communication channel is the amount of effort they have to put in to get what they want.
Customer effort is more than simply picking the quickest and easiest channel to hand: few people could argue that choosing a face-to-face meeting over a web chat is a logical choice if customers are simply driven by doing what is easiest – ostensibly, the least effort – for them.
Customers do not just choose to use the channel of least effort: they choose the channel which is the least effort to them personally( both in terms of time and stress), but only where they are also confident that their issue will be resolved fully. Businesses should be aware that customer effort and first-contact resolution are inextricably linked.
[ THE SURVEY ] SHOWS AN INDUSTRY IN FLUX, WHERE... CUSTOMERS HAVE A GROWING PREFERENCE TO TALK WITH HUMAN AGENTS...
16 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE