What Consumers Do When They Can't Complete A Goal In Their Channel Of Choice

Forrester asked US consumers what they did after their first channel of choice — either Web or phone — failed to provide the information they needed. Our data shows that among those who stayed with the original firm, consumers tended to fall back to phone-based customer service when the Web failed them and to the Web when the phone let them down. To prevent these unnecessary channel switches, customer experience professionals should evaluate the experiences they currently provide in customers' preferred channels, fix the within-channel problems to avoid forcing users to shift away from a preferred channel in the first place, and make sure customers' transitions between the most common pairs of channels are smooth.