SA’s customer service levels the ‘best ever’
• Success can be attributed to investment in advancing technologies and systems, writes Alf James
It’s not only the winners of the 2017 Ask Afrika Orange Index that have reason to kick up their heels — this year the entire customer services industry has cause for celebration.
Out of the 32 industries surveyed 29 showed an increase and only three showed a drop. Service levels in SA are at their best ever. Satisfaction ratings stand at 91%, delight ratings at 54% and the dissatisfaction score is at 5%.
The success of customer services, according to Ask Afrika, can largely be attributed to investment in advancing technologies and systems. Selfhelp channels and bots are allowing businesses to deliver on time and more efficiently. But while services are improving there is a slow shift towards declining emotional satisfaction and a loss of connectedness as a result.
“With excellent ratings, amazing access to clients, big data, world-class systems, artificial intelligence and chatbots, we have the world at our fingertips,” says Ask Afrika MD Sarina de Beer.
“The question is ‘what now?’ What will we leverage, how will we integrate and use the current success to build the next tier of success? We need to optimise what we have, use it, go for gold, but find the opportunity to differentiate and be relevant to our customers’ needs and expectations.
“Relationship and connection is the new game, but this is significantly more tricky to conquer than systems and infrastructure. It is significantly more demanding on inter- and intra-personal skills and capabilities.”
De Beer says the flipside of the convenience of technology is that consumers are developing an unrealistic expectation of personalised perfection that makes it difficult to deal with the inconsistencies of human behaviour.
“The expectation is that every channel, be it internet banking, online shopping or a company’s social media platform, should be tailored to specific needs. They should be easy to navigate, be available 24/7 and any issues we have should be resolved swiftly.
“As a result when consumers actually deal with a human contact centre, they expect short queues, validation, accurate knowledgeable information and quick resolution. Where self-help channels direct the interaction with a specific set of questions and comprehensive answers, human-based responses can get messy. After all, humans are subjective and their responses can get cluttered.
“Ironically, while consumers get the simplicity and clarity they desire from systems, they are becoming increasingly emotionally dissatisfied and lonely,” says De Beer.
She believes it might be more comfortable for consumers to deal with bots and processes but it is resulting in disconnectedness and increasing emotional numbness. In a world where humans can rely on a preselected range of emoticons to hide behind online, and curate a personality and lifestyle for others to admire, emotional range is becoming stunted and artificial.
“If we look at service, reputation, effort, fairness, trust, loyalty and relationships, we see that 65% of consumers collectively state that their emotional experience was one of numbness. ATMs, SMS and e-mail channels (so nonpeople channels) do better. When they come into contact with a technician the lowest emotional satisfaction is experienced. So expectations are misaligned.”
According to Ask Afrika a nett promoter score (NPS) is no longer an entirely effective measure of ascertaining consumer behaviour, because research shows that a person might say they will promote a product or service, but only because they are being prompted. If it was left up to them to recommend something spontaneously it might not happen. The result is that an NPS is a better indication of what a consumer is prepared to associate themselves with than what they will recommend.
“Tech has become our LSD; we expect too much on our own terms and have an elevated need for experience.
“We expect more from tech and less from ourselves and our personal relationships.”
On the upside, tech has allowed people a voice and a sense of power parity, she says. Social media allows us to protest and people are using it to engage in narratives that increase their social capital.
She adds: “This year we can celebrate lots of hard work that has already happened to make this the best year ever for private sector service delivery, but there is work that needs to be done to connect and build real relationships and real connections with customers.”