Holiday Customer Service Email Response Performance. Shame On You.

Zachary McGeary | December 10, 2007, 07:14 PM

I am back in the midst of our Annual Customer Service & Support Webtrack, a well-vetted methodology for evaluating customer service & support availability and performance during this peak holiday season. This year we will be focusing exclusively on email response performance. Preliminary data show a continuation of well-established trends. Namely, an almost complete disregard for email response management best practices among even top organizations. This is something, that in four years, I still cannot fathom.

Such poor performance has significant impact on customer behavior. Consumers, after all, wish to be provided with the same level of service across ALL touch points.

In a world of ubiquitous "Customer Experience", "Loyalty & Retention" and "satisfaction" initiatives, how can this rightly be happening? There are several documented answers, none of which are being addressed widely: inappropriate software (e.g. Outlook, Lotus Notes, homegrown solutions), failure to adhere to best practices for managing email inquiries and poorly/rarely integrated knowledge management. This report is a must-read for all organizations exploring the possibility of approaching all three of these issues effectively.

Email is largely leveraged as a "reactive", not strategic, channel. This is a huge part of my theory on why companies are not dedicating appropriate resources. Yes, drastic increases in inbound email inquiry volume are challenging even the top performers. Companies who don't have the appropriate resources in place are doing a great disservice to a growing portion of their customer base. Not to mention, experiencing low customer satisfaction levels and increased customer service costs due to re-contact via relatively more expensive touch points.

Based on previous research, consumers are more likely to turn to phone more than any other touch point if their email inquiry is not resolved within their expectations. That is costly. C'mon guys. If you want to cut costs by deploying email, then commit to applying appropriate resources and best practices to preempt those expensive phone calls. There, in addition to the productivity improvements that packaged email response management software can provide, IS where cost-savings can be found.

I'll be back here to announce some high-level results from this webtrack. Clients, you may of course peruse the report when it is published, likely before year-end. I expect to be back here at that time continuing to shake my finger at the organizations that continue to neglect their email response management initiatives. Why, when organizations that ARE applying appropriate resources are actually improving performance, do you continue to choose to be sub-par? That is a challenge. If you wish to explore opportunities to discover email response management best practices and what exactly "appropriate resources" are, please don't hesitate to contact us. We are standing by. Clients. Non-clients.