Making Experience An Integral Part Of Customer Service

Service providers across categories face the challenge of providing great customer care experiences via the Web channel as they try to cut costs in the call center and their customers start to seek support online. Unfortunately, online customer support from the average residential voice, TV, Internet, or wireless voice provider only proves satisfactory to roughly 40% of customers, sometimes less. While their competition and counterparts see customer satisfaction levels for Web-based care hovering around one-third, Qwest — a US telecommunications provider — garners satisfactory ratings from half of its customers. Why? A focus on bettering its Web site that centers around customer experience, features and functionality, and usability. Consumer product strategists should take note: Qwest's higher levels of customer satisfaction with the customer care for its voice product could mean less churn.