Info-Tech: IT Service Desks Should Focus on Customer Feedback
Global IT advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group has published a new industry research blueprint to help IT service desks provide greater customer satisfaction. Rather than relying on traditional metrics like response time, which results in dissatisfied users because the mechanisms do not capture customer perceptions and behaviors, IT should be measuring and acting on customer feedback instead.
In Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback, the research also notes that many IT leaders do now know how to design surveys for eliciting user feedback, or they lack a mechanism to survey users. And in IT organizations where customer satisfaction surveys are in place, often nothing is done with the results because service desk leaders either do not understand the value of analyzing the data or do not know how to analyze the data.
However, asking customers for feedback and doing nothing with it is worse than not asking for feedback at all, the research points out, as customers may become more dissatisfied if they take the time to provide value and then see nothing done with it.
Based on the research, the firm recommends that IT leaders consider a four-pronged methodology to measure customer satisfaction, execute transactional surveys to resolve individual tickets, implement relationship surveys to assess overall customer satisfaction, and analyze and act on feedback.
Headquartered in London, Info-Tech provides research and advisory services on technology projects, industry trends, core IT processes, and IT leadership and strategy.
ActiveCampaign: SMBs Can Compete with Big-Box Retailers by Focusing on CX
Just 12% of respondents say big-box retailers exceed their overall CX expectations, which could provide opportunities for small and medium businesses (SMBs) to gain more ground. At the same time, more than 70% of consumers believe that big-box sellers are better equipped at solving CX problems and responding in a timely manner, indicating the need for SMBs to focus on solving problems and improving response time, according to a new survey by marketing automation services firm ActiveCampaign.
Related Article: Report Findings: Consumers Today Are Largely Unexcited by Brands
For SMBs to improve CX and beat large retailers in 2023, Chicago-based ActiveCampaign provides three tips. The first tip is to automate the customer relationship management (CRM) process and do away with managing manual, time-consuming processes. The second tip is to save time and focus more on customers by talking to them, which becomes possible because of time saved through the use of automation. The third and final tip is to send branded transactional emails like confirmation orders, password resets, and shipping notifications, in order to provide information that goes beyond the automated message.
Used by more than 185,000 businesses in 170 countries, the ActiveCampaign CX platform offers pre-built automations that combine transactional email and email marketing, marketing automation, e-commerce marketing, and customer relationship management (CRM) for segmentation and personalization across social, email, messaging, chat, and text. A majority of its customers also avail of the platform’s more than 900 integrations with third-party apps like Microsoft, Shopify, Square, Facebook, and Salesforce.
Qualtrics: Trust and Satisfaction in Higher Education Improve, But Listening Lags
Trust, satisfaction, and likelihood-to-recommend levels have bounced back in colleges and universities compared to what they were a year ago, but higher education also lags other industries when it comes to listening to feedback, according to the 2023 Education Experience Trends Report from experience management provider Qualtrics.
With satisfaction and trust on the rise, colleges and universities should take the opportunity to build their brand reputations and nurture positive experiences and outcomes, the report says. Efforts to improve student experiences must be grounded in intentional listening, including the adoption of technology to make sense of the vast amount of information available, and to move beyond listening to closing the loop and driving action. The same applies to improving the employee experience (EX) in academia, especially with more than 40% of higher education workers feeling emotionally drained and at risk of burnout, the report notes.
CX trends for 2023 in higher education include establishing multi-channel feedback approaches for community members so they feel heard, building trust with equity-driven decisions for greater impact, using institutional loyalty to improve brand reputation, and putting community members first to improve satisfaction.
For the report, Qualtrics surveyed more than 7,000 consumers across 25 countries as well as more than 2,500 employees from 27 countries about their experiences with educational institutions in 2022.
Talkdesk: Retailers Continue to Invest in CX and Interactive Engagement Tools
A new report from contact center services provider Talkdesk states that despite growing market uncertainty, retailers are investing in CX tools to drive revenue, and also are evolving their customer service approaches to deliver more interactive, unified engagements.
In The Future of Retail Customer Service: Interactive and Unified, the findings indicate that although customer acquisition still ranks high on the list of desired outcomes, CX professionals across industries point to customer retention as the new North Star. And to successfully drive shopper loyalty, brands must cultivate deeper relationships with customers, investing in channels that allow ongoing, interactive engagement. Two in five respondents plan to invest in video chat and voice-based, AI virtual agents, while nearly a third say they will invest in livestream video channels, such as YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch for customer support.
A shortage in customer-facing staff is also resulting in a growing number of retailers turning to nontraditional customer support channels, such as brand ambassadors and influencers, and making them available to customers for handling questions and service inquiries.
Even so, nearly 60% of retailers do not use any of the data they collect—mostly gathered from email and social media, and from text and customer sentiment to a lesser degree—to personalize future service interactions or marketing outreach. Such an omission represents an unmined opportunity for retailers toward making progress in building both customer loyalty and the bottom line, the report notes.
EY: Governments Need New Ways to Seize Digital Opportunities
Governments around the world risk failing their citizens through lack of digitalization, according to a recent report from global consulting firm EY. In the report, How can government workers and technology align to serve future citizens, just 7% of government leaders believe that their organization has achieved digital transformation goals, raising consternation that the momentum for digitalization built up during the pandemic may be in danger of being lost.
The report also indicates that governments are not ready to capitalize on the enormous potential benefits that digitalization could bring about, such as improving access to digital services, using data analytics to predict when vulnerable people may need more assistance, and increasing efficiency across the board. Meanwhile, leaders find themselves constrained by a combination of issues, including a lack of digital and data skills and the training to access them, as well as reactive organizational cultures that hampers efforts to attract the best digital talent.
To tackle these issues, the report recommends a framework built on key actions for governments to follow when looking to create workforces equipped for the future.
Related Article: Department of Homeland Security Launches Hiring Initiative to Transform CX
EY analysis also indicates that because the pandemic upended and remade how people work and live, citizens now expect levels of quality, speed, and convenience on par with those from the private sector, with access to services available through a variety of channels.
Attracting and retaining younger workers for the public sector will be especially important given that many government employees are approaching retirement. Workers also want a digital workplace that keeps pace with their personal experience, with more than 60% believing that extensive or moderate changes are needed to enhance their workplace digital tools and technologies, the EY report states.
Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
