Press Release

Is Self-Service the Future of Customer Service?

Self-service customer service options outpace the once popular fax as a channel for customer contacts according to the Customer Service Group's annual Benchmarking and Standards survey.

(Boonton, NJ, Mar 26, 2010) — For several years customers have chosen self-service options such as interactive voice response and the Internet in increasing numbers.

This year, the results of the Customer Service Group's annual Benchmarking and Standards survey show that self-service has now outpaced fax as a channel for customer contacts.

According to the survey data, self-service now accounts for 8 percent of all customer service contacts. This is an increase over the 7 percent reported last year, and over the 4 percent reported for the channel in our 2008 survey. In addition, this year's survey shows that 50 percent of respondents now handle at least some of their customer contacts via some form of self-service, another significant increase, and 11 percent of survey respondents say that at least 20 percent of customer contacts are self-service.

Customer contacts via fax, on the other hand, slipped to only 7 percent of all reported customer contacts, according the survey. This compares to 9 percent reported last year. About 66 percent of our survey respondents say that at least some of their customer contacts are by fax, and 15 percent say that fax accounts for 20 percent or more of their total customer contacts.

The full survey data also covers key performance indicators such as wait time, length of call, first-call resolution, call abandonment, occupation rates, and more. It also covers compensation data such as salaries, bonuses, incentives and recognition programs for entry-level reps through senior service management.

The data appears in the March issue of Customer Service Newsletter and in the 2010 Customer Service Department Salary and Benchmarking Survey Report.

To learn more about this valuable report, please visit us online at http://www.CustomerServiceGroup.com/csdsr.php.

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About the Customer Service Group

For more than 20 years, the Customer Service Group has helped customer service, call center and help desk managers increase productivity, improve service quality and boost customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. The Customer Service Group publishes Customer Service Newsletter and The Customer Communicator.

Website: http://www.CustomerServiceGroup.com