Even though we live in a digital age, many brands still struggle with offering personalized interactions to their customers. Sprinklr has published a report in partnership with Customer Contact Week Digital entitled "Outsmarting Adversities | Customer Service Trends & Opportunities," to highlight concerning statistics for customer service teams and brands.
The survey discovered that there are several hurdles that companies face in their customer service journey. The challenges range from basic data collection to deploying advanced solutions such as AI. Also, over half of the participants have difficulties gathering valuable data about their customers, while more than 60% face challenges with using AI solutions effectively.
“Providing digital, personalized service is essential for companies to meet consumer expectations. Making these interactions more cost efficient and easier for agents is equally as important. Sprinklr and CCW have conducted this valuable research to help brands identify the gaps they must address to deliver on the promise of a truly unified, omnichannel customer service. The challenges uncovered go beyond customer experience and contact center teams. Insufficient intelligence hurts the entire business. Unified insight about what customers need and how they behave, can dramatically improve how every customer-facing function– from service, to sales and marketing, to product development operates. We’d like to help brands deliver the kind of customer experiences we all deserve,” said Ragy Thomas, Founder & CEO, Sprinklr.
In December 2022, CCW Digital and Sprinklr started a research project to gain a deeper understanding of the issues that are impacting the customer contact function.
Some key findings include the following:
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AI and Digital Shortages: As many as 62% of brands admit to having inconsistencies in their digital customer communication. This means they struggle with maintaining a consistent tone of voice and conveying the same information across different digital channels. Additionally, 60% of brands are having issues with the effectiveness of their AI solutions, and over half (54%) felt they did not have enough resources.
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Detached User Experience: Only 22% of customer service leaders believe their organization has achieved a fully integrated and unified system for customer data. The survey also found that there are similar concerns regarding enterprise systems (30%), objectives and metrics (30%), contact channels (33%), and departments (34%).
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Impersonal Interactions: A concerning 11% of respondents do not make any effort to personalize their customer interactions. Another 36% limit their personalization efforts by only referencing basic profile information during communication. While the remaining 53% are trying to personalize interactions, only 12% of all respondents are predicting customer needs and proactively tailoring interactions based on specific needs, intentions, or emotions.
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Inadequate Insights: As many as 51% of the brands surveyed struggle with capturing relevant data about their customers. Furthermore, 67% of companies find it challenging to analyze customer data, and 64% have trouble unifying data from different sources. The study also found that many organizations struggle to use data to improve customer experience operations (63%) and provide frontline agents with relevant context (58%). Additionally, over half of the companies surveyed (55%) have difficulty sharing insights outside of the contact center.
Thankfully, many companies are taking proactive steps to address these challenges. For instance, 53% of these companies consider leveraging AI for chatbots and enhancing customer data as a top priority for 2023. Additionally, more than 69% of these companies plan to invest in technology that can reduce the workload of their agents.
Elsewhere, Sprinklr has recently partnered with Sitel Group to help businesses boost their social customer service.
