Some companies are considering eliminating their voice channels to reduce contact center operating costs, believing it's less expensive to support digital inquiries and easier to automate those interactions. Unlike phone conversations, there is no need to transcribe requests that arrive via digital channels. However, completing interactions in some digital channels, such as email, is often more expensive than a call in the long run. It might actually require multiple email turns to fully explain and resolve an issue, resulting in a cumulative handling time greater than a single phone conversation. But there are many other factors when deciding whether to continue supporting calls, including the following:
- The phone remains the most common way for people to communicate with each other, although chat is catching up.
- When people encounter stressful situations, e.g., a stolen wallet or some form of fraud, they often want to speak to an empathetic and caring human agent.
- A large amount of information can be communicated in a short amount of time during a phone conversation.
- It's easier and often faster to negotiate deals, terms, settlements, etc., when speaking.
- The phone is typically the channel of last resort; when all else fails, people want to be able to pick up the phone and call for help.
Turning Off Phone Service Can Hurt
A few well-known organizations have tried to stop handling phone calls, instead referring all customers to their self-service and digital support options. However, they ended up reopening their voice channel a few months later after experiencing a great deal of negative feedback that impacted their brand and bottom line. There are many factors to take into consideration when deciding whether to turn off phone-based customer service. In the past couple of years, a number of enterprises that do not offer live agent phone support have successfully come to market. This worked because these companies made the lack of voice-based agent support known to prospects before they purchased their products, so consumer expectations were set.
Whether to provide live agent support for phone calls or any interactions is just one of the channel discussions companies are having. A related topic in contact centers and the customer service community is how many channels to offer and which are the right ones to support.
Industry Best Practice
The ideal service is meeting customers in their channels of choice, pivoting with them as they move from one to another and supporting the simultaneous use of multiple modalities. However, for many organizations, delivering this level of service is not easy. While some contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) solutions can support 20 to 40 digital channels, there are many factors to consider with each added option, including cost, complexity, management, resources, training, and onboarding. Today, it's a best practice for contact centers to support phone, email, chat, short message service (SMS), messaging (including WhatsApp), mobile app, social media, and possibly other channels commonly used in their regions and industries. Companies should closely assess their customer' channel preferences, add support for new ones, and possibly turn off others, as their customers' needs change.
DMG's research has found that it's not a good practice to turn off live agent phone-based support, but it might be acceptable to only offer digital-based support if this is communicated to consumers before they purchase products. However, this is only one decision organizations need to make as they look for ways to alter their customer service experiences. Companies dedicated to delivering an outstanding CX should survey their customers about channel preferences and then interact with them on those channels, while appreciating that they will change over time. Digital channel preference is a dynamic issue, but one thing that will remain constant is that in the end there is nothing that replaces interacting by phone (or in-person) with a live agent.
Donna Fluss, president and founder of DMG Consulting, is an expert on contact centers, analytics, and back-office technology. She has 30 years of experience helping organizations build contact centers and back-office operating environments and assisting vendors to deliver competitive solutions. She can be reached at Donna.Fluss@dmgconsult.com.