What are the plans, drivers and obstacles of organizations to invest in digital customer contact? And what dilemmas and choices do companies in the Netherlands and Germany see when investing in employee experience (EX)? Do customer contact professionals see cross-connections? Ziptone gauged the mood in the Netherlands and Germany.

 

Whether you want to increase quality or efficiency or reduce the costs of customer contact, the opportunities of AI are there for the taking. But is more technology the only or the best answer to these objectives? Or can you also invest in better and more efficient customer contact across the axis of employee experience?

Business Channel Preferences

First of all, it is noticeable that the manned channels are under the most pressure in the Netherlands. Reducing voice and email is high on the agenda. You could see that as the gateway to further digitalisation and automation. In Germany, the pressure to reduce voice volume is less visible. Nevertheless, the German respondents also want to grow the manned and unmanned digital channels; the targeted growth of unmanned channels is even 10% higher in Germany than in the Netherlands. It is possible that this indicates a catch-up, with German organisations not yet wanting to do channel substitution: digital channels are added, but not at the expense of traditional channels.

Customer facing AI? Not yet

In both countries, roughly one in five uses AI. Knowledge management and dialogue support (agent assist/next best action) are the most used applications, followed by automated summarization and the generation of draft emails. As AI applications get closer to direct customer communication, they are used less often.

Improving or improving customer contact can also be achieved through the axis of employee experience. In Germany, investments in this area are mainly made in technical solutions (unified desktop, system integration, customer recognition, knowledge base, agent assist: 71%) and in well-being (work/life balance, for example flexible working hours and working from home: 62%). Dutch respondents do the same, but pay more attention to the work environment (office decoration, sports facilities, fruit/healthy food, massage, social events, working climate, etc., 69%) and to the design of the function (increasing autonomy, task enrichment, employee involvement, gamification, opportunities for training/development, 69%).

Employee experience: no link with absenteeism

It is remarkable that respondents in both countries do not see investments in EX as a means to reduce absenteeism costs. German respondents do mention reducing turnover (costs) as a motive more often than Dutch respondents: 29% and 17% respectively.

Although the benefit of investing in EX is seen, respondents in both countries encounter obstacles. In the Netherlands it seems difficult to complete the business case, in Germany time and money are the most important issues. German respondents also encounter the works council, an obstacle that is not mentioned by Dutch respondents.

 

The Top 5 Obstacles to Improving the EX

Germany:

1. Have sufficient time for implementation
2. Getting enough budget
3. Realizing support within our organization
4. Obtaining the consent/cooperation of the works council/trade union
5. Slow decision making in our organization

The Netherlands:

1. Measuring the results of investments and efforts
2. Staff turnover and/or absenteeism
3. The right culture in management
4. Getting enough budget
5. Have sufficient time for implementation

 

Respondents do not always measure the effects of investments in EX, but they do find that these investments are worthwhile. This is more often a belief than evidence. In Germany, one in five respondents say that EX and CX policies are fully aligned; in the Netherlands, this is 11%.

About the research – Online customer contact magazine Ziptone has, in collaboration with Content Guru and MarketResponse mapped out the plans in the field of AI and what the drivers and obstacles are. They also asked about the dilemmas and choices that companies make when investing in employee experience (EX). The online survey was conducted among customer contact professionals in the Netherlands and Germany. Respondents are customer contact professionals in in-house or facility contact centers, working in operational management or in staff positions. The report can be found here.

(Ziptone/editors)

Customer Experience, Featured Content Guru