Despite some progress made to segment customers across the wider organisation (55% of contact centres indicate their organisation has segments in place), only four in 10 (37%) of contact centres have made use of this segmentation to tailor contact and service offerings for their customers. Of this number, less than half (47%) match the potential value of each customer segment against individual contact centre channels, such as phone, web or SMS (text messaging).
The vast majority of contact centres are now truly multi-channel, dealing with customer interactions via phone, email, web, post and fax. So it remains a surprise, with the increased use of text messaging, that SMS is still largely being ignored as a complementary channel, with only 16% of centres having integrated it with other channels and two-thirds (66%) stating they have no intention to do so.
The report also reveals that less than one in five centres (18%) is currently able to measure customer lifetime values. This low number may explain why just 14% of contact centres are using personalisation of products and services for high-value customers.
Cara Diemont, Marketing Director of Customer Interactive Solutions for Dimension Data, comments: "Businesses are spending considerable amounts of money and time in building their brands and developing a segmented offering for their customers. This investment, however, cannot be realised if the contact centre is failing to deliver a targeted and tailored service. The majority of contact centres are still not taking advantage of customer segmentation, and therefore callers and businesses are not reaping the benefits that a truly differentiated customer experience can offer."
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