New Research: Social Media Emerges as a Preferred Care Channel but Customers Expect Faster, More Personalized Responses

Sixty-four percent of consumers surveyed would share their social-media identity with their service provider in exchange for better service, research finds

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Amdocs

Jun 04, 2014, 06:00 ET

NICE, France, June 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- At TM Forum Live! in Nice today, Amdocs, the leading provider of customer experience systems and services, released the findings of a research study that identifies  social media as an emerging channel for consumers seeking customer-care assistance. The research highlights an opportunity for service providers to improve the customer experience and reduce call center costs. By linking customers' social media identities to their profiles stored in the customer relationship management (CRM) system, and using big data analytics techniques to identify important social media shouts, service providers can pre-empt calls or even better resolve the issue before the call reaches the call center.

The Amdocs-sponsored research study comprised of two projects: a survey exploring service providers' customer care readiness on social media conducted by Ovum, and a separate survey conducted by Coleman Parkes that examined consumer attitudes towards social media as a customer-care channel.

Key findings:

  • Sixty-eight percent of service providers believe their customers take to social media such as Twitter or Facebook because they are unable to reach a care agent on the phone.  The reality though, is that 50 percent of consumers actually prefer using social media to reach their service provider rather than call the contact center.
  • Fifty percent of customers have tried to communicate with their service provider for customer service on social media yet three quarters never received a response or resolution, leaving a frustrated 80 percent of those citing that they have no choice but to call the call center.
  • Fifty-two percent of consumers expect a response within 30 minutes of their social media contact, but only 24 percent of service providers say they respond within that timeframe.
  • Sixty-four percent of customers say they would be willing to share their social identity with their service provider, in return for better service and 48 percent would like to receive relevant, personalized offers from their service provider via social media.
  • There's work to be done for service providers to integrate social media data into their customer profiles - 93 percent of service providers state that they cannot identify customers from their social media profiles, and 64 percent of service providers do not store social media interactions in their customer relationship management (CRM) database.

"Subscribers are increasingly reaching out to their service provider across social media for customer care but due to lack of customer insights service providers are only able to provide generic responses, leaving the customer feeling more frustrated," said Shagun Bali, analyst at Ovum. "However, if service providers link their customer's social identity to the customer profile already stored in their CRM systems they can gain contextual knowledge of the customer, and as a result deliver a consistent response while improving customer satisfaction and cutting costs by increasing first call resolution (FCR)."

"The research shows a huge opportunity to deflect customer care to lower-cost, social media channels and to increase Net Promoter Score (NPS) and positive word-of-mouth visibility," said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president for product and solution marketing at Amdocs.  "When people take to Twitter or Facebook to ask questions or, worse yet, complain about their service provider, that's an opportunity the service provider can take to proactively resolve that customer's issue – if they know that customer's real identity."

The Amdocs Social Care solution, part of the Amdocs CES 9.1 suite, provides a consistent quality of experience for customer care across social media by filtering customer-care related issues from the noise across social media and focusing on the shouts that matter. The solution links the customer's social identity to the CRM customer record to gain complete context, and stores social identity and interactions in the customer's history while also enabling issue resolution on the first contact through a single agent desktop.

The research combines an Ovum survey, conducted in May 2014, via a questionnaire of 100 global service provider executives; and a survey by Coleman Parkes Research of 4,068 consumers worldwide in January 2014.

Supporting Resources

About Amdocs

For more than 30 years, Amdocs has ensured service providers' success and embraced their biggest challenges. To win in the connected world, service providers rely on Amdocs to simplify the customer experience, harness the data explosion, stay ahead with new services and improve operational efficiency. The global company uniquely combines a market-leading BSS, OSS and network control and optimization product portfolio with value-driven professional services and managed services operations. With revenue of $3.3 billion in fiscal 2013, Amdocs and its more than 22,000 employees serve customers in over 80 countries.

Amdocs: Embrace Challenge, Experience Success.

For more information, visit Amdocs at www.amdocs.com

Amdocs' Forward-Looking Statement

This press release includes information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about Amdocs' growth and business results in future quarters. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be obtained or that any deviations will not be material. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, the effects of general economic conditions, Amdocs' ability to grow in the business markets that it serves, Amdocs' ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses, adverse effects of market competition, rapid technological shifts that may render the Company's products and services obsolete, potential loss of a major customer, our ability to develop long-term relationships with our customers, and risks associated with operating businesses in the international market. Amdocs may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future; however, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These and other risks are discussed at greater length in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2013 filed on December 09, 2013 and our quarterly 6-K forms furnished on February 11 and May 15, 2014.

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