2014 convergys u.s. customer scorecard research · for this year’s research, we interviewed...

2014 Convergys U.S. Customer Scorecard ResearchKey Findings on Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction

IntroductionIf your service strategy is still focused on delighting customers at all costs, the findings from the 2014 Convergys U.S. Customer Scorecard Research may turn that thinking upside down. Likewise, when it comes to consumer experiences with digital interactions: more is not necessarily better if digital channels fail to resolve customers’ issues.

Building on our body of research on customer loyalty and satisfaction, the impact of customer effort, and adoption of digital interaction channels, Convergys’ latest findings offer insight into where customer experience and contact center investments can make a significant and measurable impact, and where previous investments may not have been as fruitful.

For this year’s research, we interviewed nearly 3,000 U.S. consumers, ages 18-74, all of whom had at least one interaction with a company within the previous six months, with companies representing the following industry segments: banking, credit cards, health insurance, Internet service providers, retail, satellite/cable, mobile service, and technology. Their responses give customer experience and contact center leaders new perspective on consumer attitudes and behaviors when it comes to customer service.

This report combines our primary research, thought leadership, and best practices gleaned from more than 30 years of experience managing the customer journey. The result is a rich source of information for formulating and evolving future customer experience and contact center strategies.

Still focused on

delighting customers at

all costs? Convergys’

research may turn that

thinking upside down.

22014 Convergys U.S. Customer Scorecard Research


While not quite returning to previous levels, customer loyalty appears to have stabilized, but what role does service play? Our findings show that product still reigns in driving loyalty, with 61 percent of respondents saying it’s the most important aspect when recommending a company. Price ranked second-most important at 16 percent. Only 11 percent responded that service quality was most important, a drop of 3 points compared to 2013.

However, when customers talk about service, it’s more often after a bad experience, with 8 in 10 dissatisfied consumers telling others about a recent interaction, while only 5 in 10 of extremely satisfied consumers reported telling others (see Figure 1). This shows us that while service plays less of a role in loyalty than product does, poor service is more likely to drive the opposite: customer disloyalty.

In our 2011 research, 59 percent of the respondents we surveyed indicated they were loyal to a company. In 2013, this figure dropped to 52 percent—a fairly significant decline of 7 percentage points. In our latest research, customer loyalty recovered slightly, with 55 percent responding positively.

Customer Service Has a Limited, but Important, Role in Loyalty

Figure 1. How customers communicate about recent interactions. When customers talk about service, it’s more often after a bad experience.

93%

99%

IN-PERSON | PHONE

15%

14%

SOCIAL

9%

11%

EMAIL

9%

14%

TEXT

told others aboutrecent interaction

8 in 10DISSATISFIED

told others aboutrecent interaction

5 in 10EXTREMELY SATISFIED

How Customers Communicateabout recent interactions

Service plays less

of a role in loyalty

than product does,

but poor service

is more likely to

drive customer

disloyalty.

L O YA L59%

2011

L O YA L52%

2013

L O YA L55%

2014


Forget About Exceeding Expectations and Focus on Reducing EffortWhat may be a surprising finding for many is that contrary to popular wisdom, the payoff for exceeding customer expectations is minimal compared to the penalty for not meeting expectations.

In our 2014 research, when asked about the likelihood of changing their spending, of those who indicated that their expectations were met, 21 percent planned to reduce spending anyway. In comparison, 16 percent of those whose expectations were exceeded also planned to reduce spending in the future (see Figure 2). Thus, despite the high effort and costs of attempting to exceed expectations, the payoff is only five percent fewer consumers planning to decrease their spend with a company.

However, of those who said that their expectations were not met in their most recent interaction, a whopping 61 percent indicated that they were likely to decrease their spending, demonstrating a significant penalty for not meeting consumer expectations for service interactions. Based on these findings, companies should strongly consider shifting their investment from trying to exceed expectations to focus on delivering low-effort experiences and eliminating the top causes of dissatisfaction.

What are those top drivers of dissatisfaction? Once again, we asked about the reasons why consumers were not satisfied with their most recent interaction. The top three answers have remained largely unchanged since we began our Scorecard survey in 2009 (see Figure 3):

■ Had to repeat myself, including providing the same information in multiple channels

■ Had to contact multiple times

■ Took too long to resolve

While these reasons for consumer dissatisfaction are not specific to any one channel, the risk of dissatisfaction may be increased in an omnichannel environment that is dysfunctional, resulting in customers having to switch channels for resolution. Channel switching often results in all three of the above situations.

12%

66%

22%

Industry

Overall

Mobile

Cable/Satellite Banking

ISP Credit Card

Technology Retail

Health Insurer

Exceeded Did not meetMet

Expectations

Customer Expectation Versus Reality Convergys research shows that exceeding

customer expectations doesn’t happen often.


Reasons for Dissatisfactionmost recent interaction

Can’t understand accent

No follow through

Rep didn’t listen

Rude, disrespectful

Won’t fix overcharge

Tried to upsell

Bad billing

Hard to reach service

Had to use different methods

Rep not empowered

Took too long to resolve

Had to call multiple times

Had to repeat myself 45%

37%

34%

29%

24%

23%

19%

18%

17%

16%

16%

15%

14%

AGENTCOMPANY

EFFORT

Figure 3: Reasons for dissatisfaction with most recent interaction. High-effort interactions cause consumers the most dissatisfaction.

Expectations

0%

50%

100%

Satisfaction

Decrease spend

2%

61%

Did not meet

77%

21%

Met

99%

16%

Exceeded

Figure 2: The payoff of exceeding expectations versus the penalty for not meeting them. The difference: only a small payoff for exceeding expectations.


What may be another surprising finding for many companies is that while consumers increasingly prefer digital interactions (see Figure 4), they aren’t getting what they need in their preferred digital channel and have to resort to traditional channels to get their transaction completed or issue resolved.

In our survey, 20 percent of consumers reported that they started on a company’s website, but were dissatisfied and abandoned it, with 38 percent trying the web again and 23 percent switching to the phone (see Figure 5). The top dissatisfiers with company websites included:

■ Not being able to find the information needed

■ Not being able to do what they needed to

■ No resolution

Consumers Want Digital Interactions, but Current Capabilities Aren’t Delivering

Similarly, our findings show that there hasn’t been an increase in customer desire to use chat. The attitude towards online chat usage remained constant, with 27 percent of users going to a website with the intent to use chat, versus 74 percent who only use it if offered.

While 19 percent of those who prefer to use the phone for customer service said they would never use chat, 12 percent said that they would use it instead of calling if it were more accessible and available. Another 12 percent indicated they would use chat if it were faster and easier.

When digital deployment is dysfunctional, consumers often switch channels to get resolution, which could increase the number of interactions without reducing effort or improving satisfaction.

Figure 5: Consumers prefer digital channels, but capabilities keep them in traditional channels. Website dissatisfaction can lead to switching channels.

Figure 4: Consumer preferences for digital interactions. Digital engagement is strong and growing.

■ The website was too complicated

■ Technical issues

47%Will Do Anything to AVOID CALLING

42%Can Handle All TransactionsVia MOBILE APP

28%Typically Access Internet Via MOBILE

11%Prefer TEXT Over EmailWhen Contacting

67%Manage Most Accounts ONLINE

WWW.

20%

25%35%

20%In-person

PhoneDigital -Other

Digital -Web

When online contacts failed…

TRIED WEB AGAIN

SWITCHED TOPHONE

%38 23%

1st Channel Used

Other Digital: IVR: 6% | Email: 5% | Web chat: 4% | Mobile web: 4% | App: 3% | Mobile chat: 2% | Other: 1%


New for 2014’s Scorecard Research, we asked questions that would help us uncover insight into the survey process from the consumer perspective. That said, the data we collected originates from consumers who agreed to take a survey (our survey) in the first place, which limits our findings to people who tend to be more likely to take surveys.

With that caveat in mind, we discovered that the consumers who frequently respond to surveys tend to have higher transactional Net Promoter Score® and loyalty scores than those who sometimes or infrequently respond, with the difference being as much as 18 points. This tells us that companies’ survey results could be weighted more to people who have positive experiences rather than negative. The bottom line? It’s likely that your most loyal advocates are the ones primarily taking your surveys.

We don’t believe this information implies that you shouldn’t conduct customer surveys because your most loyal customers are most likely the ones taking them. The key takeaway from our findings is that you should view survey results as recommendations to drive improvement that you can validate with your broader customer base.

Finally, we wanted to understand the top motivators for taking surveys (see Figure 6). What we found was that rewarding customers for taking a survey is the number one motivator by far, with 60 percent of respondents indicating incentive as why they take a survey. Coming in second was a short survey. If you’re looking to increase participation in your surveys, our data shows that incentives and brevity can help improve response.

Your Customer Survey Results Could Be Overstating Customer Sentiment

View survey results

as recommendations

to drive improvement

that you can validate

with your broader

customer base.

Figure 6: Top motivators for taking surveys. Consumers like when they’re rewarded and it’s quick. GREAT

EXPERIENCE

44%

22%COMPANYTRIES TO HELP

INCENTIVE

60%

TERRIBLEEXPERIENCE

38%

SURVEY ISSHORT

46%

COMPANYWILL LISTEN

34%


The findings in the Convergys U.S. Customer Scorecard Research are intended to be actionable, helping executives form the foundation for new strategies and initiatives for improving customer experience. By combining these results with Convergys best practices from our more than 30 years of experience designing, unifying, and optimizing the customer experience for our clients, you can take steps to identify and improve performance against your business goals by:

Making the Results Actionable

■ Looking Ahead of Current Customer Needs: Companies should be thinking and planning ahead of current customer expectations to make sure that investment plans will meet future customer expectations. Convergys believes these investments should be focused on personalized and efficient interactions that are connected across all channels.

■ Optimizing Chat: There’s an opportunity to optimize chat to lower effort, make it a seamless part of the self-service channel, and reduce cost to serve. For a large cable provider, Convergys performed a chat analysis with actionable recommendations that identified ways to increase data capture and pass-through to reduce contact handle time by 6 percent.

■ Listening to Customers: Take your survey results and validate them with your broader customer base to give you better insight for strategic business decisions rather than relying on surveys alone. You should also take the opportunity to give more visibility to customers about changes your company has made based on the feedback it receives. This will help you demonstrate that you’re listening to your customers and encourage them to keep providing feedback.

■ Eliminating Root Causes of Dissatisfaction: To reduce customer service’s impact on disloyalty, focus on eliminating the root causes of dissatisfaction or detraction, including the big drivers we’ve identified. For a cable client, Convergys combined survey insights with call observations to uncover root causes of dissatisfaction. Based on the resulting information, Convergys suggested the client add specialized staff to resolve customers’ billing issues during the first call, which is estimated to save the client $7 million in costs while improving satisfaction.

■ Investing in Reduced Customer Effort: Digital channels are an important area of opportunity to decrease customer effort by combining data and information and connecting channels to deliver a more seamless experience. For one Convergys client, the Convergys team utilized a customer effort index to identify and target processes that drive customer effort. Convergys helped the client reduce customer effort by 39 percent and improve first call resolution by 10 points within one year.

The findings from our 2014 U.S. Customer Scorecard Research once again substantiate our body of research on customer effort and the relatively small impact of service on loyalty. We also call into question the perception that exceeding expectations delivers a significant return on investment with strong evidence that the payoff is, in fact, rather small compared to meeting expectations. At the same time, the consequences of not meeting expectations appear to be extremely detrimental.

If you’re wondering how your organization can improve the customer experience in areas highlighted by the results of the Scorecard Research, Convergys can help you identify, implement, and measure performance improvements. Using our proprietary Convergys analytics, omnichannel technology, and global outsourcing, we enable you to achieve unprecedented levels of customer satisfaction, less churn, increased revenue, and distinct competitive advantage.

To learn more about Convergys Customer Scorecard Research, visit www.convergys.com/scorecard.

POV014 2-10-15

Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.

Conclusion

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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.

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2014 convergys u.s. customer scorecard research · for this year’s research, we interviewed...

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