Is Self-Service the Future of Customer Service?

March 26, 2010 - PRLog -- 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 frequency and type of customer contact, average call length, average time in queue, first-call resolution, call abandonment, occupation rates, and more

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 provided training and motivational materials to customer contact professionals in all industries.

Website: http://www.CustomerServiceGroup.com