The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many changes, both in the private and public sectors. Consumers have found themselves in situations where they have had to change their consumption behavior almost completely, have turned to technology, and have embraced social distance. Companies instead needed to reinvent themselves or adapt to new consumer behavior. Thus, technology has come up with the solution, namely the digitization of workflows.
Forcing the adaptation of SaaS tools has led to some changes – such as customer service centers being forced to focus on the customer.
In this article, we bring to you customer service statistics – but we’re not just talking about customer behavior, it’s about industry trends, too.
Why you need to measure call center metrics
To keep up with all the changes, news, and trends in the industry, a very handy method is to keep track of call center statistics.
On this occasion, you can identify the expectations and dissatisfaction of customers, and you can identify new opportunities for new services.
Here are 3 key statistics for a call center:
Source: financesonline.com
2021/2022 Statistics
In the following, we will show a series of relevant statistics on the contact center industry, grouped by pillars of interest.
General Call Center Statistics
Source: financesonline.com
- The size of the global contact center market is worth $ 339.40 billion.
- By 2027 the global contact center market is expected to reach $496 billion.
- 73% of customers will consider switching to a competitor just after one bad customer experience.
- Industries with the highest NPS: Department and Specialty Stores, Brokerage and Investments, Hotels, Credit Cards, Airlines, Drug Stores/Pharmacies, Smartphones, Computer and Tablets, Online Entertainment, Auto Insurance, Software and Apps, Online Shopping, Life Insurance.
- Industries with the Worst Net Promoter Scores: Internet Service, Cable, and Satellite TV Service, Health Insurance, Shipping Services, Rideshare, and Food Delivery, Travel Websites, Cellphone Service, Banking.
Source: financesonline.com
Online Customer Service Channels
- In 2020, 64% of customers tried a new customer service channel.
- Even though the use of voice contact has decreased (from 51% to 43%), 76% of customers still prefer to use the phone.
- Phone and online chat are considered the easiest to use, with 64% of customers considering this. Following email (61%), web self-service (58%), mobile app (57%), and text messaging (55%). The two channels with the lowest ratings are live video chat (49%) and social media (47%).
Customer Experience by Region
- North and South America have the highest share of customers who rated CX capacity as excellent at 17.1%. The majority (62.2%) classify the general CX capacity of the companies as seven, eight, or nine, ten being the maximum.
- The Middle East and Africa region have the second-largest share of consumers, ranking its CX capacity as excellent at 15.5%. Another 15.5% classify their CX capacity as new; 23.2% rate it as eight and 22.7% rate it as seven.
- In the Asia Pacific, 8.3% of consumers consider CX’s capacity to be excellent in the region. The majority, at 63.4%, rate CX capacity in a region as either seven, eight, or nine.
- In Europe, only 8% of consumers consider the region’s CX capacity to be excellent. A good proportion of 18.3% ranked it as seven out of ten, 27.2% eight out of ten, and 17.9% with nine out of ten.
Source: NTT
Customer Experience as a Competitive Differentiator
- 53.8% of CEOs view CX as a primary differentiator, 40.3% as a partial differentiator and only 5.9% do not consider it as a differentiator.
- Interesting is the fact that only 50.5 of CX professionals view CX as a primary differentiator, 46% partial and 3.5% do not believe in it.
Source: NTT
AI & Chatbots
For several years now, many companies have embraced the power of AI to support live chat.
- Retail companies that use chatbots are perceived as efficient (47%), innovative (40%), and helpful (36%).
- 70% of consumers prefer interaction with a human agent.
- 41% of consumers believe in the power of chatbots, while 59% disagree.
But let's talk about the future ...
From the statistics presented above, we can see a clear trajectory: the customer has never been more important than today.
The future sounds like this: man and technology will come to work together to find solutions to customer problems. This also comes with the more intense use of analysis and machine learning. Computers will provide a solid database.
But with the digitization of processes and workflow, let’s not forget what really matters: human interaction.
In Conclusion
If we take a look at the companies’ strategies, we can see how many have become customer-centric. The customer is always right … but it’s more than that!
Staying up to date with what’s happening in the marketplace, but not only, staying up to date with your contact center has become a must.
There are solutions that help you generate reports with statistics, in which you can see what pleases and displeases customers, what is the consumption behavior, and what is the professionalism of the center’s agents. You can also identify if your center is in line with industry trends, and more than that, you can identify new products or services. All this brings a competitive advantage.
