Are You As Good As You Think You Are? The Big Disconnect Between Brands And Their Customers

Do you think your company provides good customer service? Of course you do!

Do you think your customers would agree? Most likely it’s the same answer: of course you do!

But, you may be wrong. Even though we may think we’re good at responding to customers’ questions, problems and complaints, overall, our customers don’t agree. And here is the proof. Calabrio has released its State of the Contact Center 2022 report. To get the answers they were looking for, Calabrio surveyed 250 contact center managers and 250 consumers. Here are three of the most revealing findings, along with my commentary.

· Eighty percent of contact center managers say they’re meeting customer expectations, while only about 45% of consumers agree. That’s a huge 35% gap. Where is the miss? Is it long hold times, multiple transfers, agents who haven’t been properly trained, agents who haven’t been empowered or some other reason? Forget that the managers think their contact centers are doing a good job. Take a look at the customers’ perceptions. Only 45% think contact centers meet their expectations. And we wonder why customers don’t like reaching out to a company for help or support.

· Seventy-eight percent of contact center managers think their agents provide emotional empathy, but only 58% of customers agree. Once again, that’s a big disconnect. Back in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, empathy became more important than ever. Customers’ emotions ran high. They were worried, angry and scared. Empathy was a way to show concern and build relationships. Two years later, empathy is just as important. Customers liked it, and they got used to it.

· Seventy-nine percent of contact center managers think they have quick response times, yet only 45% of customers agree. You may think you have good response times, but about half of your customers would disagree. It’s simple. Customers don’t like to wait. That’s friction. There is an alternative. It’s not perfect, but it helps control the customer’s frustration. If you have to make customers wait on hold, invest in the technology that lets them know how long the wait will be and also offers a choice of waiting or being called back.

So, how do you close the gap? First and foremost, survey your customers to find out if these gaps (and others) apply to you. The results fall into two areas. One, you’ll confirm that you’re doing a good job. If that is the case, keep doing what you’re doing. Or two, you’ll realize you have work to do. Then consider this process:

1. Survey your customers. (You’ve already done this, so continue on to steps two through seven.)

2. Journey map the customer’s support experience. If you haven’t done a good journey map of the experience customers have when trying to contact your company—across all channels—do this now!

3. Mystery shop the support experience. This is one of the best ways to know the experience. It gets even more interesting when executives and leadership play “Undercover Boss” and assume the role of a customer.

4. Look at the map and the mystery shopping report card to discover gaps and opportunities.

5. Discuss how to eliminate or mitigate the gaps and look at all touchpoints (where customers interact with you) to brainstorm opportunities to enhance the experience. Figure out how to create the proper processes, invest in the right technology and properly train your people to empathize, understand and properly handle questions and complaints.

6. Go to work! Make the changes necessary to close the gap.

7. Repeat. No, your work isn’t finished! Just like the directions on your shampoo say to lather, rinse and repeat, once you’ve done the work in the first six steps, wait an appropriate amount of time and do it again. At least repeat step one. If the new results come back to your liking, then you can forgo the rest of the process, but not forever. You must continuously monitor customers’ perceptions. If the new results still show a gap, keep working on the process until you narrow the gap to an acceptable range. You may not ever achieve perfect perception harmony, but the effort to get there will pay off with happier customers who say, “I’ll be back.”

Once you know your gaps, you can create the proper processes, invest in the right technology and train your people to empathize, understand and properly handle questions and complaints. While this may all seem like common sense, the numbers prove that common sense is not always common.