Nucleus Research Report Shows Big Benefits for Brands as They Increase Their Customer Service Maturity
A new report from Nucleus Research shows brands and organizations are increasingly challenged to deliver higher quality and more consistent levels of customer service across channels – but those that do see significant benefits in reduced costs, increased productivity, improved customer satisfaction and support for continued growth.
In Assessing Customer Service Maturity – An In-Depth Look at Microsoft Customers, Nucleus Research vice-president Rebecca Wettemann notes, “despite the growing strategic importance of Web self-service, chat, e-mail, and community channels for customer interaction, many companies still treat these channels as completely separate from their other channels of customer interaction.
“This is true both in terms of technology, where they’re treated as a cost center, and organizationally, where a lack of integration and interaction means they miss valuable opportunities to better understand their customers, improve engagement, and, ultimately, drive growth.”
To understand how increasing the maturity of customer service processes and supporting technologies from functional, to tactical, to dynamic maturity where technology, feedback and analytics, and increased employee empowerment and collaboration combine to drive significant results, Nucleus Research conducted in-depth interviews with more than 30 customers currently using Parature, from Microsoft as either a stand-alone solution or with Microsoft Dynamics CRM to deliver multichannel support.
Through these interviews with customers whose deployments ranged from 18 months to more than ten years, Nucleus Research analyzed challenges faced, resource requirements, best practice usage and current business processes, along with the benefits associated as customers increased their customer service maturity.
Below is a sampling of individual benefits realized through increased customer service maturity in different areas:
Agent Productivity
“We’ve been able to dramatically scale our support load and optimize internal resources by automating key tasks and providing customers with self-service.”
Contact Deflection
“There used to be 1200 to 1500 tickets per month, but this has fallen to 600 to 800 [with self-service].”
Customer Insights
“The insights we gained about our customer base were critical in the early stages of our company’s growth, and they remain vital today as we compete on a more global scale.”
Collaboration
“Today, customer service software is used far beyond customer service, with the data being used in professional services, product development, human resources, and marketing.”
Customer Satisfaction
“With Parature, we’ve seen a dramatic change, customer satisfaction has held at 93 percent satisfaction in the U.S.; before Parature, it was 87 percent.”
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Read the Report
To read the full results of the study, along with insights from Nucleus Research’s Rebecca Wettemann and Anne Moxie on customer service maturity and best practices through three defined stages (functional, tactical and dynamic), download the research note today.
