BASKING RIDGE, NJ--(Marketwire - Aug 15, 2012) -
- Company highlights the ROI of next generation customer service at industry conference
- Brand imperative for today's businesses: reach customers through more channels faster and unify the experience -- or customers go elsewhere
- Avaya Customer Experience Interaction Management Solutions enable and unify multi-channel customer service, enabling an increase in both customer and business value
The voice of the customer is louder than ever, and companies need to be aware of how their brands are being affected, according to Avaya, a leading global provider of business communications and collaboration solutions and systems. For many industries in today's highly competitive markets, the quality of customer service is a key factor setting them apart from the rest; however, companies are challenged on several fronts to provide that extraordinary customer experience.
At SpeechTEK 2012 yesterday, Dr. Val Matula, senior director of Multimedia Research for Avaya Labs, told an audience of hundreds of IT, marketing, and customer service executives from a wide variety of industries about the risks and rewards inherent in the quality of customer service they provide, and how they can leap the hurdles to deliver Gold Medal service. Among the rewards:
- 83 percent of customers will buy more from companies that make doing business easier(1)
- 70 percent of customers will spend more money for good customer service and 15 percent will spend 20 percent more(2)
To reap those rewards, companies need to embrace a multi-channel model that enables the customer to reach them at any time, using any method of communication and any device. But perhaps more importantly, the varied channels of communication any given customer may choose at any particular moment -- including both self and assisted service -- need to be spun into a common thread that unites with his or her history. Equipped with this "customer context" and easy access to the subject matter experts who can be tapped for further support, companies increase satisfaction through first and fast resolution of the customer's need.
The findings of a survey of financial services customers in the U.S. released earlier this year bear out the need for companies to equip contact centers with the tools that enable customer access backed by a seamless multi-channel service experience. According to the survey:
- 24 percent of financial services customers would be happy to use click-to-call and 14 percent would like to use video chat.
- Mobile banking is gaining popularity as well, with more than one-quarter (27 percent) of respondents already trying some form of it and 34 percent of U.S. consumers eager to make mobile payments.
- The call center remains the preferred first stop for resolving a complaint or issue.
Avaya Customer Interaction Management Solutions are designed to empower companies, customers and agents. The company's recently announced mobile, video and social media customer experience applications are enabled by the global contact center market leaders' Avaya Aura communications infrastructure, and a broad portfolio of self-service, interaction management and workforce optimization solutions. Companies across the Fortune 500 as well as mid-size organizations such as nTelos Wireless, Integrated Medical Partners and the Minnesota Wild are taking advantage of Avaya's Customer Experience Interaction Management Solutions and reaping the rewards.
Supporting Quotes:
"Today's brands are not built in side conversations. Instead, they're being built, or destroyed, in social media, so it's important that a company knows what's being said, can filter out that which is actionable -- remembering only 10 percent or less of the buzz might be actionable -- and quickly take action. The tools that enable companies to listen to social media need to be tightly connected to their overall customer service operations and strategy, so the right resources can be activated at the right time, opportunities can be captured, customers can be wowed, and if the customer has an issue, a PR crisis averted."
Dr. Valentine C. Matula, senior director, Multimedia Research, Avaya Labs
"Customers expect organizations to recognize them immediately when they make contact. They want brands to know them, to anticipate their needs, and to meet them immediately. There is very little 'wiggle room' in today's market for a company to delay in responding to a customer concern -- it's very easy for customers to change loyalty, and with social media, broadcast their satisfaction -- or dissatisfaction -- with the way you treat them."
Jorge Blanco, vice president, Product Marketing, Avaya
Additional Resources
Avaya Customer Experience Interaction Management Solutions
The Road to a Better, More Profitable Customer Experience whitepaper
Bringing Social Media Interactions into the Contact Center whitepaper
Tags: Avaya, contact center, customer service, customer experience, customer interaction, brand differentiation
About Avaya
Avaya is a global leader in business communications and collaboration, providing unified communications, contact centers, data solutions and related services to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.
Certain statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should" or "will" or other similar terminology. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While we believe these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These and other important factors may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to Avaya's filings with the SEC that are available at www.sec.gov. Avaya disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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(1) BTGS, January 2011
(2) Wall Street Journal, April 2011
Contact Information:
Deb Kline
908-953-6179
klined@avaya.com