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Customer service ready to talk-online dialogue booms
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Companies turning to innovative technologies for Internet-based customer support
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Online dialogue fast becoming fourth pillar in the mix of communication channels
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Hamburg, December 19th 2007 –
The expansion of dialogue-based advice systems on the Internet has brought customer support one of the biggest changes since the introduction of e-mail communication. Mail-order houses have been instrumental in this development. In future, specialists and managers in that industry intend to deal with more than half of their incoming customer enquiries directly on their websites. This includes mechanisms such as virtual consultants, dynamic FAQ systems and live chats, which are set to make company websites and Internet forums far more important than they are now. With average costs of ten euro-cents per enquiry and the benefits of a real-time service with round-the-clock availability, investments can pay off after only a few months for many companies. These are the findings of the “Multichannel Management” trend survey by software company novomind AG in conjunction with specialist magazine TeleTalk.
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Companies with more than 800,000 customer contacts per year will in future be responding to more than a quarter of these via the Internet. If their business is in the consumer industry, then the proportion of queries dealt with by Internet could even rise to 30%. Companies throughout the German Internet industry are planning to expand the share of customer issues dealt with online from today’s 7% to 17%. The Internet could therefore more than double in importance as a communication channel for customer support.
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Until now, customers have relied mainly on a mix of telephonic assistance (30%), consultations in person (27%) and written correspondence by e-mail (22%) when it comes to dialogue with their customers. They are currently handling about as many enquiries through their websites as they are by letter. The fast expansion of online services will probably cause in-person assistance to decline by 3%.
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Internet-based customer support is especially attractive from a financial point of view. That is because consultations in person cost companies a lot of money—€15 per customer contact on average. Although telephone or e-mail assistance reduces the cost to €5 per case in the best-case scenario, automated online services offer much greater cost benefits. At an average of ten cents per enquiry, an investment in intelligent online technologies usually pays for itself in just a few months. Costs can be cut and call centres relieved, especially if many of the queries are of the same nature.
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Hamburg-based software company novomind is the fastest-growing company in the fields of electronic customer communication and mail management. As a leading provider of innovative solutions for digital customer communication, novomind AG offers software for service-based, personalised interaction with customers. This achieves noticeable increases in the efficiency of customer administration, as well as a fast return on investment. The service portfolio of the Products Business Unit includes the novomind Self Service SuiteTM. This software package contains all of the communication modules required for a customer service centre, which revolve around a central knowledge base: e-mail management, virtual customer consulting and systems for interactive real-time communication. In its Services Business Unit, novomind AG implements complex eBusiness applications. More than 40 big-name companies have already opted for novomind technology, including Citibank, Otto and the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund (German Pensions Association). Club Bertelsmann, EnBW and Mexx, as well as public sector institutions such as the German Bundestag and the Federal Ministry of Economics, are already using novomind systems successfully to back up their customer communication, increase their turnover and improve their public relations.
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