No Lines, No Waiting

Customer Care: What Do Customers Really Want?

Some of us are old-fashioned: we yearn for the traditional customer care that helped make some companies great.  Today, we are frustrated by “phone trees” and automated services.  We are continually annoyed by the absence of a human on the phone to help us.  We’re irritated when we don’t get decent customer service.  This generation is desperate for something better. 

Our number one annoyance, according to a 2009 Business Week survey:  Waiting on Hold. Like being stuck in traffic, it wastes our time and aggravates us to the core.

One frustrated customer describes a typical bad customer service situation: “Waiting for 15 minutes to talk to a representative, only to be put on hold for 10 more minutes to be transferred to someone else, only to have my line go dead.”

In a down economy, what company can take chances on losing buyers due to customer service frustration?

Well thought out technology can help.

Customer care used to be defined in terms of personal attention.  That’s being re-defined: today customers want quick and efficient service, so they can get on with life.  Well thought out technology can make that possible, improving customer service and enhancing customer satisfaction.

For instance, online services such as “Click to Call” and “Click to Chat” (C2C) from Art Technology Group allow customers to quickly get what they need.  Companies like DirecTV, Best Buy, Continental Airlines, and Hilton use them to let customers contact call-center agents via instant messaging or over the phone.  ATG aims to ensure customer satisfaction so they become loyal, repeat, and profitable customers.

“There’s recognition of how important service is to loyalty,” says Bruce Temkin, the guru of customer experience at Forrester Research.

And, surprise:  customers will not go almost anywhere just to save a few dollars! Online marketing intelligence analysts BIGresearch found, in a four-year long market intelligence survey, that “most customers will put service ahead of price.”  Among their top 5 list of what keeps customers satisfied are available staff and convenience.

Bottom line: the world has changed – today’s customers just don’t want to wait and they don’t want any difficulty.

Pamela Taylor
TimeTrade Blogging Team

Image credit: arinas74 on Multimedia-stock.com

Posted by TimeTrade Blogging Team