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The Shifting Sands of Satisfaction
Consumers are now totally connected—and totally demanding.
Is “effortless” the new satisfaction?
They expect the right service at the right time, in a place that
is convenient for them.
The common denominator in the majority of dissatisfied
interactions is the level of effort required by the consumer
to get to a resolution.
Consumers want companies to adapt to their needs, to engage
them in a way that suits them, and to take the initiative in building
a trusting relationship that aligns closely with their values (e.g.,
charitable donations, use of fair trade products, etc.).
This sense of “satisfaction” is an elusive, fascinating, and
ever-changing collection of moments that lead to loyalty.
Our paper, The Changing Face of Loyalty, argues that you
are rarely rewarded for exceeding expectations, but you
are heavily penalised for dissatisfaction. To use an analogy,
dissatisfaction acts as a hole in the bucket of satisfaction that
you are providing over time.
Therefore, the best road towards building greater loyalty is to
eliminate these areas of dissatisfaction.
Top three reasons for dissatisfaction
So where do you look for the roots of dissatisfaction? The
2014 Convergys Customer Scorecard Research* shows that
they remain largely unchanged since 2009. The top three
reasons for dissatisfaction are:
2. Had to call multiple times (37 percent)
In a recent analysis, Convergys found that 73 percent of the
consumers who rated their agent a “10” in terms of delivering
a good experience also classified themselves as promoters of
the company. But that promotional behavior fell off quickly as
agent-satisfaction scores dropped.
Reasons for Dissatisfaction in Most Recent Interaction
45%
37%
34%
29%
24%
23%
19%
16%
In a world of multiple touchpoints (voice, email, chat, apps,
web, even text) you are not, necessarily, in control of where
the customer initiates contact.
However, if done correctly, you will not be penalised unduly
for asking customers to switch channels—providing it leads
to a successful outcome.
On the other hand, an unsuccessful outcome (whatever
the channel) will lead to you being heavily penalised by
that customer in a satisfaction score, ultimately impacting
loyalty and spend.
64 %
40 %
31 %
14 %
Percent CSAT with
Most Recent Interaction
MADE MORE
THAN ONE
CONTACT
2+ contacts
USED MORE
THAN ONE
CHANNEL
2+ channels
HAVE BEEN A
CUSTOMER
FOR 10+ YEARS
DO NOT GET
GOOD VALUE
FOR THE PRICE
1 contact
1 channel
68%
80%
69%
74%
10+ years tenure
74%
<10 years tenure
71%
Not good value 18%
Good value
91%
Figure 2. Experiences that happened yesterday often taint
satisfaction today.
Mind the gap—manage the transitions
18%
17%
15%
Creating a good outcome whatever the channel
Customer
History
3. Took too long to resolve (34 percent)
16%
Furthermore, research shows that reducing this effort,
along with the appropriate, relevant communication (which
we will come onto) and alignment to values, will greatly
increase satisfaction.
The trouble is that, in many situations, channel switching
is not elegant and can often contribute to the three biggest
reasons for frustration. Overcoming these must be a
priority.
1. Had to repeat myself, including providing the same
information in multiple channels (45 percent)
Had to repeat myself
Had to call multiple times
Took too long to resolve
Rep not empowered
Had to use different methods
Hard to reach service
Bad billing
Tried to upsell
Won’t fix overcharge
Rude, disrespectful
Rep didn’t listen
No follow through
Can’t understand accent
Thus reducing this consumer effort has a significant impact
on reducing dissatisfaction.
EFFORT
AGENT
COMPANY
14%
Figure 1. Five of the top six reasons for dissatisfaction are
effort related.
You have probably implemented hot-swaps in your call
centres—one agent passing all relevant information
over to another so that customers do not need to repeat
themselves or go through security again. But have
you been able to implement hot-swaps between your
technology-based interfaces and your people-based
interfaces?
The Shifting Sands of Satisfaction
Given that the starting point for a customer engagement
can be at one of any number of touchpoints, to make the
experience effortless, you need to understand and measure
their journey across the different platforms, and importantly,
the crossover between platforms.
So, if a customer sends you a text with a complaint
(11 percent prefer text to email), then how slick is the
experience they receive if you ask them to call you?
Also, if they call from the same number they have texted
you from, will they go straight to the right person to resolve
their initial request? Or will they just go to the central team
and be taken through several levels of agents to get to a
resolution?
Similarly, what happens if they contact you whilst already
logged onto their account online? A UK bank (famed for its
telephone support) struggled with this. Security restrictions
meant that the agent and the customer could not be logged
on to the account at the same time, meaning they couldn’t
look at the data together—the customer would be told to log
off. Yet some industry estimates show that around a third of
consumers are still on the provider’s website as they call.
Measuring customers’ effort—not yours
Maybe chat could have a greater part to play in plugging
the channel gap than it currently does? Certainly our own
research shows that convincing consumers who said they
preferred to use the phone to use chat instead is definitely
possible, especially if chat were seen as more accessible,
faster, and easier to use.
Measuring your effort in delivering customer service is no
longer enough. You need to measure their effort in dealing
with you across multiple touchpoints. As customers move
from one channel to another, you need to be able to follow
them and measure the effort they require to put in for you to
2
service them. By effective journey mapping, you will be able
to identify and pre-empt potential excessive effort involved
in crossing channels.
In our related paper, Metrics That matter, we go further into
how to measure customer effort so that it can be reduced.
Supporting European diversity
The cultural differences in Europe create different
challenges for customer services. These even extend to
the online world. Previous research has shown that you
can expect to see different perceptions of consumer effort
by region, by country, or even by industry by country. We
know that in the world of e-commerce there are variations,
such as the French and Spanish being most vexed by not
being able to speak to someone during a transaction. The
Germans identify poor checkout processes as being their
biggest bugbear, and for the UK, a large part of frustration
comes from the logging in/account management stage.
Again, each of these is effort related. Reducing customer
effort overall will produce higher satisfaction levels and
increase loyalty and spend. Some in-country solutions may
need special attention, to incorporate cultural and legislative
nuances.
Minimising customer effort can be combined with other
traditional customer satisfaction techniques. These include
reducing failure demand (the customer chasing something
that should have happened but hasn’t) and win-win
personalisation (only asking for personal information at an
appropriate point and only to create a positive outcome for
the customer, and only communicating the things they have
asked for). Undertaking these measures together should
result in customer satisfaction levels rising sharply.
Satisfaction may be elusive, fascinating, and ever-changing,
but it is achievable.
*2014 Convergys U.S. Customer Scorecard Research
■■
2,808 surveys among U.S. consumers aged 18-74 years using an online research panel
■■
To qualify, respondents must have had at least one interaction with a qualifying industry in the six months prior
■■
Data were weighted for age and gender based on the 2010 U.S. Census
■■
Bank (n=358), Credit Card (n=397), Healthcare Insurance (n=364), Internet Service Provider (n=266), Retailer (n=406), Satellite/Cable TV (n=251),
Mobile Service (n=290,) and Technology (n=477)
ABOUT CONVERGYS
Convergys delivers consistent, quality customer experiences in 47 languages and from more than 150 locations
around the globe. We partner with our clients to improve customer loyalty, reduce costs, and generate revenue
through an extensive portfolio of capabilities, including customer care, analytics, tech support, collections, home
agent, and end-to-end selling. We are committed to delighting our clients and their customers, delivering value to
our shareholders, and creating opportunities for our talented, caring employees, 125,000-strong in 31 countries
around the world. Visit convergys.com to learn more about us.
©2015 Convergys Corporation. All rights reserved. Convergys and the Convergys logo are registered trademarks of Convergys.
TL020A4 3-11-15
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