How to overcome challenges digitising customer experience and customer service system on businesses’ digital transformation journey?

Infobip, a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected customer experiences across all stages of the customer journey, today releases a report titled A Year of Disruption: Managing Increasing Complexities in Customer Service which indicates that even if working from home is not continued in future after the situation improves, digital transformation is here to stay.

With the rise of remote work, 2020 marked the start of a major digital transformation journey for many businesses in Asia Pacific. As employees had to work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the customer experience (CX) and CX processes had to be digitised.

The report, which surveyed 2,760 professionals across nine markets – Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, shows that while companies intend to implement some changes permanently in future, there are still some challenges to overcome.

• More Queries amid Uncertainty: 54% of respondents cited the increase in support enquiries as a top challenge faced in customer support last year.
• Bridging the Skills Gap: The survey shows that 60% of APAC respondents said employee training is a top consideration when adopting a digital customer support system.

• The Silver Lining: In 2020, as countries began lockdowns, businesses turned to remote working. 58% respondents cited being able to better cope with demand as a top benefit of adopting remote working.

The CSS and CX landscape are evolving and slowly departing from traditional channels. More companies are improving their customer communications by integrating chat into their larger communications strategies from Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp Business to Viber. In the long run, this solution alone is not enough, companies should seek for more scalable solutions to meet customers’ needs not only in fast but also effective and personalized ways.

Automating the Future

Half of the respondents reported that the digitalisation of CSS is a permanent implementation moving forward, considering the long-term benefits that come with smart automation and implementation of a digital omnichannel hub.

On a scale of 1-10, respondents rated an eight on average for the importance and necessity for CSS to be digitalised.

Dan Pham Gia, Business Development Director at Infobip said, “Companies that have adopted digital tools to help them stay relevant in the mind of their customers have seen a positive impact overall last year. Vietnam had recorded the highest utilisation of platforms and channels to provide customer service out of all countries surveyed. This may attest to their readiness to move deeper into their digital transformation journey.

We see great digital potential for the country and now is a strategic time for businesses to start looking into activating a full suite of omnichannel solutions and well-equipping their workforce to enable connected customer experiences.”

However, the survey shows that the CX industry seems to be experiencing a skills gap. In all the markets, respondents listed employee training as the top considerations when it comes to adopting a digital customer support system.

A deeper dive into the data tells us that the increase in support channel, management of new support channels and unfamiliarity with new channels are among the common digital technology challenges. In Vietnam, 51% of the respondents cited increase in support channels and 38% of them cited unfamiliarity with new channels as challenges in relation to digital technologies when coping with customer service support.

Vietnam possessed great digital potential but increase in support channels and unfamiliarity with new channels remained the top two challenges.

Preparing the Labour Force

Infobip encourages employers to train their CX workforce for digital transformation and invest in communication channels that are relevant to their markets by finding the best solutions to simplify their communication needs.

A Year of Disruption: Managing Increasing Complexities in Customer Service was fielded by a third-party company with 2,760 professionals across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. Survey responses were collected between December 21 and December 27, 2020.

To download A Year of Disruption: Managing Increasing Complexities in Customer Service, please visit here.

 

About Infobip

Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected customer experiences across all stages of the customer journey at scale, with easy and contextualized interactions over customers’ preferred channels. Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication, security and contact centre solutions help clients and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications, grow their business and increase loyalty– all in a fast, secure and reliable way. With over a decade of industry experience, Infobip has expanded to include 65+ offices on six continents offering natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 190+ countries connected to over 800 telecom networks. The company serves and partners with leading mobile operators, messaging apps, banks, social networks, tech companies, and aggregators.

 

Press release distributed by EloQ Communications.