3CLogic's Contact Center Blog

In January, Forbes dubbed 2022 the year of the customer. Now, organizations that were working with outdated systems at the beginning of the pandemic have been forced to reactively adapt to shifting customer expectations.

If it feels like today’s customers have higher expectations than ever before, it’s not just your imagination. With so many options to choose from, customers can easily take their business elsewhere if a particular organization doesn’t provide an exceptional level of service.

When it comes to waiting on hold, studies have shown that callers don’t have a ton of time to spare.

A recent survey from Arise Virtual Solutions reveals that over 65% of customers are only willing to wait on hold for a maximum of two minutes before hanging up. What’s more, over 13% of respondents said that hold time, no matter how long, is unacceptable altogether.

Many company executives realize the importance of customer service to their organization. It’s no longer seen as just an outlet for customer complaints but instead a department to help ensure customer loyalty. As its core function, customer service is expected to effectively handle basic customer transactions.

Think back to a bad customer service experience. What do you wish the rep had done better? How about the best experience you had? If you’re like most people, you expect customer service to be able to quickly and proactively help answer questions and resolve issues. After all, isn’t that why they are there?

Customer experience is quickly becoming businesses’ next competitive battleground, expected to overtake price and product as a brand’s key differentiator by 2020. And while many organizations are making CX strides within their individual departments, adopting advanced solutions (CRM, Marketing Automation, Contact Center Solution, Billing Software, etc.) and business processes to help streamline customer data management and user activities, most are still lagging as it relates to cross-departmental collaboration and communication. In fact according to a recent survey by Fast Company, 70% of organizations believe that “Silo Mentality” is the biggest organizational hurdle to improving the Customer Experience.