| Home-based Contact Center Agents Becoming Mainstream
The home is gaining new ground when it comes to call centers and stationing of customer services personnel. According to the latest research published by Datamonitor, there will be significant growth in outsourced contact center agents based around the at-home model. The report, “The future of customer-facing technology in the outsourced contact center,” highlights some of the key reasons for what is expected to be a new way customer care firms provide client-facing mechanisms. Between now and 2012, Datamonitor expects the number of home-based customer service agents to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 36.4%, one of the strongest expansion levels of any outsourcing market sub-segment.
Based on extensive research across the at-home outsourcing market, Datamonitor projects that the global size of the market for home-based third-party customer service agents working 20 hours a week or more currently stands at approximately 47,000. However, based on expected growth projections from pure-play and bricks-and-mortar vendors, Datamonitor expects it to rise to almost 224,000 by 2012. Currently, the majority of home-based customer care agents are overwhelmingly based in the U.S.
The prime verticals for this service are technology, healthcare, tourism and travel and insurance. This is due to the fact that all these sectors are highly specialized and in many cases, it is hard to recruit customer service agents for actual contact centers.
A further driver for many firms to look to at-home agents is the alternative it provides to sending work to offshore or nearshore locations. With lower costs and less concern about the integrity of infrastructure and public security, investors are beginning to see the home agent model as a viable alternative to moving agent positions to multiple locations globally.
However the home agent model will not impact that of offshore outsourcing massively over time. At-home agents serve a growing but specialized niche, and the need for large numbers of agents offshore with multilingual capabilities will remain a priority for outsourcing clients.
With many investors still worried over the integrity of customer data, there remain worries in the minds of many prospects over how secure the at-home agent model is. However, Datamonitor’s research has shown providers of these services have been able to address these concerns by deploying thorough background checks on prospective employees, as well as by providing real-time monitoring analytics. Other concerns include that of home agent supervision.
Despite certain concerns surrounding the at-home outsourcing market, Datamonitor feels that this business model is certain to gain significant traction from companies interested in lowering overall costs, while keeping their customer-facing services onshore. In addition, the quality that can be derived from a typical home agent is reportedly very strong, which will be another driver for companies to gain from excellent end-user interactions.
http://www.datamonitor.com
India-based SMBs to Increase Spending on Storage to Handle CRM, ERP Data
Small and medium businesses in India are set to invest more than US$480 million on storage products and services this year, up by over 35% over last year. Much of this growth will come from small businesses (SBs ,or companies with up to 99 employees) which comprise 99% of India’s SMBs by number of firms.
This comes from the latest report by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. SBs account for over 50% of the overall storage expenses by India SMBs. This proportion will rise as SBs move up the technology adoption ladder.
Medium businesses (MBs) also spend more on storage-related services compared to SBs, because MBs have larger storage needs. MBs are on a rapid growth path buoyed by the nation-wide economic growth. They are gradually scaling up in terns of size, number of business partners, area of operations, geographical spread, etc. This expansion results in a jump in the quantity of data handled; and consequently, the requirement for robust data storage also surges. Data archiving requirements due to regulatory bindings and compliance needs is also an important driver.
MBs’ focus towards storage is also vindicated by their attitude – about 60% said in an AMI survey that increasing IT storage capacity and deployment of enhanced storage solutions will be a primary strategic focus area for them in the next 12 months.
A vital driver of the SMB storage market is the usage of business applications software like ERP and CRM that are quite data-driven. However, their adoption is still at an embryonic stage for both SBs and MBs. Yet, their rate of growth is quite healthy as SMBs appreciate their benefits. This includes building long-term customer relationships and loyalty (for CRM) and integrating employees, business partners and branches in a chain where they can collaborate, access data from a unique data repository (for ERP). SMB expenditure on CRM and ERP applications is set to rise by about 20% and 10%, respectively, this year.
Another boost comes from the deployment of websites and e-commerce applications. Their usage is increasing rapidly among Indian SMBs as they strive to use these marketing tools to access customers and suppliers. One other crucial parameter is a focus on security, with more than 50% of MBs and 30% of SBs citing security enhancement as a key technology area.
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Survey Reveals Top 100 U.S. Online Retailers’ Customer Service Shortfalls
With U.S. online retail sales for Q1 2007 totaling $31.5 billion, an astounding independent study has revealed that U.S. online retailers are failing in key areas of customer service, which has the potential to be devastating to the online retail market which is forecasted to reach $329 billion in 2010.
In a mystery shopper exercise conducted from April to June 2007, an overwhelming 34% of emails went unanswered by 100 of America’s top online retailers, with just over 50% of responses providing accurate and complete information. The findings of the audit are highlighted in a report published today by customer service specialist and leading Customer Interaction Management (CIM) software solution provider Talisma Corporation.
Talisma asked the leading U.S. online retailers the following questions:
- What credit/debit cards can I use to make payment?
- What are your shipment charges?
Talisma’s audit awarded each online retailer a score out of 100, based on a range of customer service criteria, including speed of response, accuracy, completeness of information provided, and the personalization of interactions. Although 93% of companies audited responded to phone queries within 30 seconds, only 5% were able to communicate with personalized content -- by referring to caller ID or a customer profile. Personalization is increasingly being recognized as a critical factor in delivering customer service excellence. In fact, customers are beginning to expect to be acknowledged and treated as “special” on return visits across all channels of communication. According to JupiterResearch, consumers’ expectations of service performance increase as they spend more time online. As such, the repercussions of poor service experiences also increase.
Of the 230 million U.S. Internet users, many are well-versed in the use of chat, and prefer to communicate with online retailers that way. However, only 30% of the audited retailers are able to accommodate that channel preference. Even worse, for those customers who prefer to find information themselves before contacting customer service, a mere 3% of online retailers offer full-fledged Web self-service.
However, there were some bright points in the audit, including the fact that 100% of the audited companies provided access to phone-based customer service, with 95% providing it for free, and 96% provided access to email. Unfortunately, while 78% of U.S. Internet users shopped online in 2006, online retailers aren’t taking full advantage of the Internet channels. In effect, they are missing out on tremendous opportunities for both revenue growth and customer service cost savings.
Overall, the Talisma audit revealed that online retailers are failing in three key areas:
- One-third of email queries were ignored: Email is generally accepted as one of the most efficient communication tools. This seems to have been overlooked by many online retailers as 34% didn’t reply to customer emails.
- Lack of self-help tools: 97% of online retailers had no knowledge base to help prospective buyers make an informed decision based on product features and suitability, known issues, or customer service accessibility and policies.
- Accuracy of information provided: only 51% of emails and 72% of phone calls answered provided accurate information.
Additionally, the audit revealed that 89% of online retailers do not provide agents with a unified customer history of all customer interactions across channels.
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