New Research: Australians Intolerant to Poor Customer Service
RingCentral, a leading provider of global enterprise cloud communications, collaboration, and contact centre solutions, has released a new report, Overcoming the Digital Disconnect: How Disjointed Communications Technologies Are Letting Customers Down — and How to Solve It.
Based on a global survey of 2,000 customer-facing employees by CITE Research, including 500 in Australia, the report reveals a direct connection between employee and customer engagement.
The data shows that disjointed communications technologies not only harm employee productivity and morale, but also hurt customer satisfaction and the bottom line.
Additionally, the data found that poor customer service as a result of disjointed communications technologies is to blame for the loss of both customers and employees from Australian organisations; and the situation in Australia is much worse than in the US or UK.
Companies today collect and manage more customer data than ever before across a wide array of channels, yet skyrocketing customer expectations demand swift issue resolution.
The research indicates that due to disjointed communications technologies, consumers have poor customer service experiences.
This results in global customers dropping four brands per year on average.
Specifically, Australian consumers have stopped using a product or service on average six times in the past year due to bad customer service experience.
The research also reveals that employee and customer engagement are closely linked — and therein lies the solution.
Ninety-one per cent of employees believe a seamless platform that lets them navigate between all the ways they communicate and collaborate with coworkers and customers would make customers happier, which in turn would drive greater employee job satisfaction and happiness.
Disjointed communications workflow hurts the company bottom line
Managing siloed customer data has created friction: complex workflows and disjointed communications technologies frustrate employees, hurting their ability to serve customers, impacting professional and personal relationships, and ultimately, affecting the company bottom line.
- Seventy-nine per cent of Australian customer-facing employees say they can’t effectively service customers due to disjointed communications technologies that make it difficult to collaborate with coworkers, hindering productivity, and making them unhappy at work.
- Australians are most likely to say disjointed communications tools make them want to quit their jobs (26 per cent vs 18 per cent in the UK and 11 per cent in the US).
- Thirty-two per cent of Australians believe that having disjointed communications tools lead to lower profitability versus 22 per cent in the UK and 25 per cent in the US.
- It doesn’t end at the office — 63 per cent of Australian workers say they take this frustration home and are more likely to be rude to their families and friends.
Customers don’t tolerate poor service
In an increasingly digital world, customers expect to connect with companies over the channels of their choice — and lose patience if issues are not resolved quickly.
- Were you even listening? Eighty-eight per cent of global customers hate having to repeat themselves via multiple different channels.
- Twenty-eight per cent of Australians said they contacted customer service between 5 and 10 times in the last year, compared to 19 per cent of consumers in the UK and 20 per cent in the US.
The employee and customer engagement equation
Employees seek to ease communication with colleagues and resolve customer issues swiftly, and customers seek rapid resolution on the channel of their choice. An integrated communications platform delivers this seamless experience, improving both employee and customer engagement and increasing the bottom line.
- Ninety-two per cent of global employees say an integrated communications platform would enhance both the employee and customer experience, and improve customer satisfaction scores.
- Eighty-six per cent of global employees agree that a seamless communications platform would increase company profitability, and 83 per cent of employees would stay longer with a company.
- Australians are the most likely to agree that when companies deliver a positive customer experience with communications technologies, the employees benefit (92 per cent).
“Delivering the experience customers demand today requires addressing the friction that results from fragmented employee and customer communications across various channels,” said Kira Makagon, EVP of innovation, RingCentral. “Technology has a vital role to play in breaking down these communication workflow silos. This survey confirms that employee engagement has a direct impact on customer engagement — and dramatically boosts customer retention and business profitability.”
When it comes to the channels across which employees prefer to communicate with colleagues and customers, Australians are the most progressive, being more likely to use advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), team messaging, and video:
- Australians are significantly more likely than other countries to say they are very or somewhat interested in every use of AI in communications technology, such as:
- Australian workers are more likely than those in the US or the UK to use team messaging (29 per cent) to communicate with customers.
- Ninety-seven per cent say team messaging and 94 per cent say social media are effective customer service support tools.
- Ninety-one per cent of Australians say they love or like using video to interact with customers, and 95 per cent say they love or like using it to communicate with their coworkers.
To learn more about this and other findings on AI, team messaging, and video meetings, you can access the research report from the landing page here.
Overcoming the Digital Disconnect: How Disjointed Communications Technologies Are Letting Customers Down — and How to Solve It is based on a survey of 2,000 customer-facing knowledge workers and customer support employees in the US, UK, and Australia, conducted by CITE Research on behalf of RingCentral.
About RingCentral
RingCentral, Inc. (NYSE: RNG) is a leading provider of global enterprise cloud communications, collaboration, and contact centre solutions. More flexible and cost-effective than legacy on-premises systems, RingCentral empowers modern mobile and distributed workforces to communicate, collaborate, and connect from any location, on any device, and via any mode.
RingCentral provides unified voice, video meetings, team messaging, digital customer engagement, and integrated contact centre solutions for enterprises globally. RingCentral’s open platform integrates with leading business apps and enables customers to easily customize business workflows. RingCentral is headquartered in Belmont, California, and has offices around the world. See RingCentral Australia for more information.
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