Trends from Statistics - Customer Service Requirements in 2016

§ Author: Irene Lin- Director of Planning & Control Department｜Telexpress Corp. CQO §

Since I started my career in customer service industry, I haven’t felt more excited and nervous than this moment. News and articles state the era of human and robot co-existence leads to the decreasing numbers of professional workers. Technology and innovation keep changing, what will the customer service industry looks like in future?

The study of State of Global Customer Service Report 2016 published by Microsoft in June this year which interviewed 5000 interviewees from England, Germany, US, Brazil, Japan shows that any brand and company could not underrate nor ignore the increased of consumers' demand in social media customer service and self-help service as a result of the growth of millennial generation wherein such demand will only get higher and higher.

The millennial generation born between 1980 and 2000 are seen as the backbone of the global economy for the next decade. They are born in the Internet age, love new things, accustomed to listening to every piece of the surrounding, believe the power of sharing, and trust to the word of mouth form other users. They do not believe in the brand's one-way marketing strategy, but build their expectation and perspective towards the brand's quality, value, and customer service performance via social media, online browsing and search engine. Microsoft’s report presents the following three (3) points to summarize Millennium's expectations for customer service.

●68% of the millennials have a higher expectation of customer service. (Compared to 56% of all respondents)

●78% of millennials expect the customer service specialists to be aware of their product information and service history when seeking help with the brand. (Compared to 72% of all respondents)

●68% of the millennial generation will not come back to the brand because of a single poor customer service experience (Compared to 60% of all respondents)

●The channel for customer service has changed, with 65% of millennials turning customer service interactions online. (Compared to 55% of all respondents)

●36% use mobile devices instead of computers when turning to online channels. (Compared to 28% of all respondents)

●60% of the millennials use live chat. (Compared to 45% of all respondents)

●89% of the millennials used search engines to try to find answers to customer service questions. (Compared to 75% of all respondents)

●84% of millennials use the brand's self-service portal to find solution. (73% of all respondents)

●81% of the millennium generation will be more satisfied to the brand if it provides mobile devices contact channel. (Compared to 66% of all respondents)

When asked to use self-service but failed to find the needed information, more than half of the respondents said the top 1 reason is less information online, followed by the knowledge being too messy or not systematically organized.

●47% of Millennials used social media to complain about brand’s customer service. (Compared with 29% of all respondents)

●52% of Millennials used social media to ask questions to customer service. (Compared to 31% of all respondents)

●If wondering brands the brand should invest in social media as a channel for customer service, 64% of Millennials believe that social media is an effective channel for customer service. (Compared to 45% of all respondents)

At this point, will you be worried about the changes in customer service? The good news is that in another 2016 Global State of Multichannel Customer Service Report for 4,000 UK, US, Japanese and Brazilian respondents, the consumer preference is still to use the phone when seeking customer service assistance. This channel got the advantage to offer instant, customized, and complex services. To compare with the normal customer (19%), millennials (40%) are more likely to switch to other channels for issue resolution if they do not get any proactive response within an hour.

As a customer service provider, we should focus on improving the availability, quality, and knowledge of the self-service platform, empowering the customer service specialist and customer to enhance a service experience which allows a seamless transition in a cross-platform customer touch point. For a customer-centric brand, when the price and product differentiation is getting smaller and smaller, especially in today's global market, a unique and successful customer service culture will become the ultimate weapon for winning and retaining customers.