North America: First-of-Its-kind study by eGain finds major deficiencies in customer service offered by North American Enterprises

In a new market study, eGain Communications Corporation a leading provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software for in-house or on-demand SaaS deployment, found that North American enterprises are significantly under-performing in customer service.

Companies benchmarked included 120 leading businesses in the US and Canada with over $250 million in annual revenue across the financial services, communications, retail, consumer electronics, insurance, and travel sectors.

Conducted during 2007-2008, eGain's "2008 State of Customer Service" research makes a comprehensive assessment of the state of customer service. In the study, eGain evaluates the "customer service IQ" of companies with "SQ," a new metric that uses a multidimensional framework to measure the customer service competence of companies.

These dimensional metrics or sub-quotients were then abstracted to an overall Service Quotient (SQ), on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0, for each of the companies that were assessed as well as for each industry sector and the overall market. The sub-quotient and SQ scores were then categorized as "poor," "below average"  "above average," or "exceptional."**

"Automation and consolidation of channels are the top issues for customer interactions and a critical requirement for business differentiation through customer service," said Johan Jacobs, Research Director at Gartner. "Bringing in and supporting new channels with minimal cost is the "number one" priority for the next five years. By focusing on designing around the customer, services and channels can be managed through a customer interaction hub (CIH) approach in order to present a unified customer experience across all the channels."

"Companies continue to struggle with satisfying consumers across channels-particularly online. Current problems primarily exist because of companies' silo approach toward managing customer interactions," said Zach McGeary, lead analyst at JupiterResearch. "Consumers' propensity to re-contact after inquiry resolution failure cannot be ignored or reactively handled. Service organizations must consistently unify measurement, technology, and process across all touch points."

Cross-industry findings:

  • SQ for the overall market was 4.1 out of 10.0 with 68% of the companies in the"poor" or "below average" performance categories.
  • Only 2% of the enterprises received "exceptional" SQ scores.
  • A stunning 60% of the companies received a "poor" or "below average" score in the Multichannel Quotient and 46% received a "poor" or "below average" rating in the Multi-agent Quotient.
  • 28% did not respond to email inquiries. Although 50% responded within 24 hours, the quantity of "poor" responses went up from 14%  to 20%, compared to previous research conducted in 2004.

Other findings:

  • Service Quotient (SQ): The consumer electronics sector performed the best, albeit with a "below average" score of 4.6 out of 10.0, while the travel sector performed the worst with a score of 3.6.
  • Choice Quotient: The consumer electronics sector came in first again with a score of 2.4 out of 4.0, and the financial services sector came in last with a score of 1.6.
  • Email Quotient: The insurance, communications, and consumer electronics sectors performed the best, all with a score of 1.5. The financial services sector performed the worst with a score of 1.0.
  • Self-service Quotient: The consumer electronics sector came in first with a score of 2.1, while the insurance and financial services sectors were both last with scores of 1.3.
  • Multichannel Quotient: The financial services sector posted the best performance with a score of 1.9, whereas the retail sector scored a shocking 0.9 out of 4.0 with 60% of the companies receiving a "poor" rating.
  • Multi-agent Quotient: The financial services sector posted the top performance with a score of 2.2, and the travel sector came in last with 1.5.

"Customer service is fast becoming a critical competence that businesses need to acquire and exploit for competitive advantage," said Ashu Roy, CEO of eGain. "While the study raises concerns about the service competence of North American businesses, there are technologies and best practices that can help companies take their SQ to new levels."

Rating system

Sub-quotients based on a scale of 0.0-4.0:

Score < 1.0: Poor

Score > = 1.0 and < 2.0: Below average

Score > = 2.0 and < 3.0: Above average

Score > = 3.0 and < = 4.0: Exceptional

Overall Service Quotient based on a scale of 0.0-10.0:

Score < 2.5: Poor

Score > = 2.5 and < 5.0: Below average

Score > = 5.0 and < 7.5: Above average

Score > = 7.5 and < = 10.0: Exceptional

About eGain

eGain is a leading provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software for in-house or on-demand SaaS deployment. For more than a decade, the world's largest companies have relied on eGain to transform their traditional call centers, help desks, and web customer service operations into multichannel customer interaction hubs.

Based on the Power of OneT, the concept of one unified platform for multichannel customer interaction and knowledge management, these hubs enable dramatically improved customer experience, end-to-end service process efficiencies, increased sales, and enhanced contact center performance.

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, eGain has an operating presence in 18 countries and serves more than 800 enterprise customers worldwide. To find out more about eGain, visit www.eGain.com or call the company's offices: 800-821-4358 (US headquarters), 1753-464646 (UK and Continental Europe). 

Date - 07/04/2008

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