Telcos Go Online to improve customer service and reduce costs? That ought to be entertaining

This week analyst company Ovum released a report noting that Telcos "… will increasingly rely on online platforms to deliver customer service in an attempt to fight back against spiralling costs and a more competitive market"

On one hand I am happy to hear this as clearly the Telco's have not been successful in being able to deliver voice channels as effectively as other sectors, yet on the other hand it concerns me that there is a considerable cost cutting strategy for service across the sector. This does not sound promising for an industry already struggling to deliver customer service.

Let me share with you what we know about the Australian Telcos:

1. The Telecom contact centre industry has amongst the highest growth estimates and is significantly more likely than other industries to have centres that operate 24x7.
2. 85% of total customer contacts are handled by the contact centre, higher than other sectors.
3. Of these customer interactions, half (49%) are customer service related, the vast remainder being technical support(36%). Complaints make up just over 1 in 10 (12%) of all customer interactions.
4. KPI performance in Telecom contact centres is also of concern. Specifically, time in queue, talk time (inbound and outbound) and wrap time are significantly higher than in all other industries.
5. Whilst the number of training days for inductees is one of the highest across all industries, the number of sick days per agent is also the highest, and the mean remuneration per annum amongst one of the lowest.

Compared to all other industries Telecom customers are more likely to agree that:

• Interacting with call centres is always problematic

And are less likely to agree that:

• Call centre service has improved over the last 12 months
• Call centre service is better than face-to-face service
• They are happy to speak to a Customer Service Rep located offshore

Compared to all other industries, Telecom customers generally rate the lowest level of (these three attributes constitute a measure of engagement):

• Overall Satisfaction
• Overall Emotion (Happiness) immediately before and after the call
• Overall Value for Effort

So things have indeed been tough for the Telco service sector in Australia. So which channels do consumers actually want to use to interact with Telcos?

Well indeed it does look like the Australian consumer will want to use more online channels. When we asked Aussie telco consumers of all channels available which do they think they will use over the next 1-2 years the results were (remembering that the Aussie consumer uses 3.5 channels on average that they prefer to interact with):

• 55% will still use phone
• 44% will want to use email
• 35% will want to use web-self service
• 17% will want use web chat

So the Telco industry will either get their online strategy right and be able to better service customers or they will take it as a cost cutting initiative and further disengage the Australian consumer.

Hopefully the Australian consumers' disappointment won’t be as great as my disappointment in (as a Telco industry analyst) attempting to meet with the Telco's primary industry body, Communications Alliance, and being told that they could not commit to an appointment but will try to fit me in when they have a chance. Seriously?

Luckily, this disappointment was only eclipsed by the disappointment I experienced this morning in noticing that my puppy had dug up a maggot infected bone and as a gift to me buried it between a pair of Manolo Blahnik and Stuart Weitzman heels.