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Just over half of Small to Medium Sized Business (SMB) believe digital disruptions will have only a minimal impact on their customer engagement strategy.
This is one for the more interesting findings from our Asia-Pacific SMB Customer Service Trends Research Report – a collaboration between Genesys and Frost and Sullivan. We surveyed over 400 business and IT decision makers across Asia-Pacific to explore what customer experience means to SMBs in terms of business impact and priorities.
Is this lack of urgency around the impact of digital disruption evidence of a complacency among SMB’s that may blindside them and rob them of a competitive advantage as the digital future unfolds? According to the research, almost 80% believe their digital strategy – as it relates to customer engagement – is already optimised or delivering results. Yet when asked about their current competency in relation to the key values and qualities for an overall customer service strategy, SMB’s expressed the highest confidence only in their ability to offer first call resolution and increase in speed of services.
With customers receiving integrated omnichannel customer service experiences from larger enterprises today and emerging technologies such as AI, video, proactive outbound and messaging apps expected to be the focus of investment over the next 2 years, what customers expect in terms of customer service – from all sizes of business – will only increase.
Playing catch up is hard and often leads to an “accidental multichannel approach” where companies add a random patchwork of new channels without the benefit of an overarching strategy for consistent and effortless customer experiences across all channels. Our research bore this out with over 85% of SMBs admitting to having little to no integration across channels. The good news is that there is a general acknowledgement of the need for greater integration with the majority seeking to pursue full integration over the next two years.
Have an holistic vision and path forward
Despite most recognising the importance of channel integration in an omnichannel journey, cost poses a barrier for 60% of those surveyed, while 20% saw integration difficulties with systems and applications as the chief barrier.
The good news is that leading vendors now offer all-in-one customer interaction cloud based platforms that enable SMB’s to deploy and scale new contact capabilities with maximum flexibility and at a lower cost as they progress along the omnichannel journey.
What’s clear is that SMBs have some work to do to keep up with the pace of change and disruption that’s occurring with regard to customer experience and engagement. Taking an holistic view with a clear vision and actionable plan to enhance engagement and elevate customer experience so you meet customers at their preferred point is critical.
Understanding new cloud platforms that solve legacy and cost issues and embracing new technologies will take SMB’s along the omnichannel journey much faster. As will finding the right solutions vendors that can guide the transformation journey at your pace.
Learn More
So take the time to look at the research and consider where your organisation is on the omnichannel journey. The Report dives deep into the topics discussed here and many more – including customer analytics, cloud based environments and customer engagement success metrics.
We are also hosting a webinar on the 14th March – “Insights into SMB customer service trends in Asia Pacific”. We will cover the key findings of the research and provide some recommendations on how build a strategy for digital transformation.
