As the U.S. economy falls into a recession, now is the time to prepare customer service plans. The most agile leaders always look for ways to optimize the resources they have while searching for avenues that can provide a lower cost to serve. Leveraging gig experts for your customer service could be an option that your business needs to adapt.
For McKinsey, GigCX is one of the next big developments in customer experience, offering companies a more flexible, effective, and affordable model for customer experience.
Through GigCX, companies can control the real-life experience of their customers and achieve higher customer satisfaction for a lower cost than traditional contact centers.
The GigCX model, where brand advocates work on demand from anywhere, greatly reduces cost-to-serve by removing the need for fixed resources (such as headcount and office space). This means GigCX operates at a significantly reduced cost while supporting consumers in need.
According to industry research<, knowledge bases are preferable to self-service channels, while millennials' preferred customer service channel is live chat. More than 90 percent of U.S. consumers look at company customer service as a key aspect for potential business with them, and more than a quarter would switch companies immediately after a bad customer experience. It's clear that having the right people in charge of your customer service is one of the most important factors.
This is where GigCX experts could play a pivotal role.
Demands on customer service agents and GigCX experts have increased and changed. Max Ball, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, has said that "today, agents are getting a much higher volume of calls, and those calls are more difficult and challenging to deal with." Notably, our recent survey showed that 82 percent of GigCX experts believe the nature of customer service queries has changed during the pandemic. People today want added services, faster answers, and more personalized contact.
Having GigCX experts can be more helpful because customers are getting advice from experts, usually having a better understanding of issues, having extensively used the product, than contact center employees.>
Genesys' Marijn te Booij calls this "the conversation function," with customers' preferring product advice from other customers rather than the company itself. It's like a peer helping you or explaining something to you that you didn't know in a very relatable way.
Their motivation to help others comes first. There have always been people who get a genuine buzz out of helping other people, but now they are being compensated for that and helping to improve the customer experience at scale.
In 2021, contact center attrition reached 42 percent which equates to millions of dollars of losses.
It is worrying that only 30 percent of companies said they were actively investing in retention. It is not surprising that for 47 percent of agents, flexible scheduling is a key requirement to incent them to stay. Adding to that, 62 percent of customer service managers said they had to increase recruitment spending to meet staffing minimums.
GigCX's agility and flexibility can help businesses scale up when necessary, whether to support peak seasons or product launches. It provides flexibility that will act as a supplement to traditional contact centers. Serving customers with an agile pay-as-you-go model also helps lower costs as companies only pay for resolved queries, not per active expert.
The GigCX model is inevitable, and we are not just saying this. Eighty-three percent of CX leaders interviewed for our recent survey said so. The benefits it brings are huge; especially during times of uncertainty and financial difficulties, GigCX can provide reliable resources that flex with demand in volume while ensuring high customer satisfaction and a customer-centric operating model. It's a win-win for both consumers and companies.
Megan Neale is co-founder and chief operating officer at Limitless.