Being reachable during office hours is no longer enough

Faster, higher, further – with progress, the demands of our society also increase, including those on the contact center industry. People today want 24-hour service. For those who shy away from the associated effort, practical solutions exist.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz, who deals with the connection between economics and psychology, stated in his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice: The more options customers have and the better the service becomes, the higher the customers' expectations rise. What does this mean for customer service and the contact center industry? Customer centricity is becoming increasingly important. More and more companies offer better customer service. As a result, customer expectations for a contact center rise – hardly anyone is satisfied anymore with what used to be standard.

According to the report "Customer Engagement – the Road to 2020" by West Unified Communications Services, almost two-thirds (74%) of consumers find it frustrating when customer service is only available during office hours. Today, 24-hour service is expected – and not only when it comes to people trapped in elevators, malfunctioning cooling or heating systems, urgently needed doctors or veterinarians, or defective insulin pumps. The expectation of a service available around the clock is increasingly expanding to other areas.

24-hour service, please!

Today's customers expect the on-call organization to be no different during the night and weekends than the customer service organization during office hours. Whereas previously a single ticket system was sufficient for all customers, today it is common to work with a dedicated ticket system for each individual customer. In recent years, a completely new heterogeneous customer segment has emerged: technical support in the business-to-business sector. These customers must ensure high availability of their systems in a world of advancing digitalization. A globalized 24-hour society requires 24-hour support with immediate resolution claims when needed.

Today, not only people but also IT systems report when they need help. Servers and network systems are monitored in real time at 15-minute intervals, status messages are checked. "Catch and Dispatch" is increasingly developing into a first-level helpdesk. This entails significant financial and organizational effort. Which employee sits in front of the phone all night and takes three fault reports? Therefore, such a helpdesk is particularly suitable for outsourcing.

High expectations require new solutions

The 24-hour society is relentless in its expectation that technology must always work. This demand is passed on by the customer to their service provider. Service providers like TELAG especially feel the changes in market expectations when supporting their customers to deliver what is required.

An on-call or helpdesk organization on the scale offered by TELAG requires constant oversight of a multitude of processes, workflows, solution paths, information, knowledge databases, and escalation procedures – and all in four languages. A helpdesk support employee at TELAG today serves over 90 different customer systems. Timely solutions and initiating support processes are necessary. Customer and client expectations for first-contact resolution rates and flawless handling of escalation processes are high. Therefore, TELAG also has high expectations of itself – so that its customers can deliver what their target groups expect. In the end, everyone wins.

Contact: Patrick Weber Head of Sales Switzerland +41 44 276 44 22, patick.weber@telag.ch