Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America: Customer Satisfaction Directly Linked to Future Business
Consumers Give Contact Centers an Overall Score of 72 Percent, Exposing Significant Opportunity for Improvement
12 Mar 2009
MEXICO CITY, 12 March 2009 – A regional study released today by Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, and Leo J. Shapiro and Associates shows that consumers across the Caribbean and Latin America (CALA) view their typical contact center experiences as barely acceptable, with an overall satisfaction rating of 72 percent. The Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index™ Caribbean and Latin America, which also reveals that consumers who feel they receive good customer service are 13 times more likely to conduct future business with a company, finds that most companies are missing important opportunities to meet customer demands and positively impact their top lines.
“In this unprecedented global economic environment when budgets are extremely tight, it is clear that conducting business as usual could cost companies significantly more than improving customer interactions,” said Mike Sheridan, senior vice president of Strategy for Aspect. “The Aspect Index CALA identifies the basic consumer principles on which exceptional experiences are based, and provides the insight that companies need to put the right people, processes and technology in place and differentiate themselves from their competitors.”
Some of the key findings of the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America include:
Consumers view personal qualities more important than efficiency and automation and assign the highest scores in this area.
20 percent of consumers who have typical experiences feel that contact center interactions fall short of their expectations.
Contact center managers overestimate consumer satisfaction with their performance with 76 percent believing they exceed consumer expectations, while only 38 percent of consumers agree.
Consumers who say they have exceptional contact center experiences score their overall interactions 19 percent higher than consumers who have typical experiences.
Half of consumers who are satisfied will conduct more business with a company; 22 percent of those will do much more business.
“More often than not, the interactions consumers have with a contact center are their only communications with the company,” said Paul Bullett, vice president of Caribbean and Latin America at Aspect. “This means that every contact they make can help to cement a positive relationship with the brand. The companies that have a firm understanding of this can set themselves apart from the competition and build a very loyal customer base.”
A comprehensive executive summary for the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America is available at www.aspectindex.com.
About the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America
The 2009 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America is a regional survey of approximately 1,272 consumers in five countries – Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico, and Puerto Rico; and 84 contact center managers across Brazil, Columbia and Mexico. It measures the quality of consumers’ telephone and Internet interactions with companies and their representatives across 25 qualities, broken out into three categories:
Empathy and Advocacy – the human aspect of customer interactions, such as patience, knowledge, professionalism, and friendliness.
Efficiency – the overall quality and speed of the experience including being able to quickly speak with an agent, authority to resolve an issue, and clear connection.
Automation – explores ease-of-use of technologies like automated menus, multiple contact choices, and access of contact information from Web site.
About Leo J. Shapiro and Associates
Leo J. Shapiro and Associates is a premier market research company with more than 50 years of experience across a wide range of industries. Leo J. Shapiro and Associates has been behind a variety of indexes that measure consumer behaviors and attitudes including retail customer service satisfaction, significant consumer trends, grocery store shopping and others. Learn more about Leo J. Shapiro and Associates at www.ljs.com.
About Aspect
Aspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center. Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.
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Aspect, Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.