Forrester Consulting, Inc. has conducted a study on behalf of Nuance Communications entitled “Driving Consumer Engagement with Automated Telephone Customer Service.” The results of the study have revealed automated telephone customer service is rated higher than live agents when it comes to straightforward interactions. Consumers have been found to prefer automated telephone customer service systems to live agent interactions when performing tasks such as prescription refills, checking the status of a flight, checking account balances, store information requests, as well as tracking shipments.
Automated telephone systems are a preferred customer service channel for 82% of the adults who have used a speech recognition system or an automated touchtone in order to contact customer service for the last year.
Consumers were surveyed about their interest in a number of proactive notification options within five specific industries. The results have shown that the majority of the consumers have interest in at least one notification alert via email, voice or text message. Consumers are mostly interested in notifications related to the travel industry (such as flight status updates, confirmation of reservations, hotels, or car rentals). Next comes the financial services institution, where customers are interested in transaction confirmations. In health care, consumers favored appointment reminders.
“The contact center plays a crucial role in retaining consumers, yet less than half of U.S. consumers report being satisfied with their customer service experiences,” said Micky Tsui, Nuance’s senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise. “As the research shows, there is a lot of room to improve customer service. Today’s enterprises have the opportunity to differentiate themselves by considering their customers’ needs and providing intuitive speech applications that improve customer loyalty at every touch point.”