Nearly 80% cos to implement conversational customer engagement to enhance CX: Study

Nearly 80% of companies have or will implement conversational customer engagement — the practice of communicating interactively with customers from one digital channel to another while retaining context — to improve customer experience, according to a joint study by IDC and Sinch.   

Of those, more than half (52%) will do so using a Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) to deliver the efficient, hyper-personalised contextual experiences customers want most, it said.   

While most companies employ multiple channels and a majority are leveraging conversations, only 22% of companies use more than three channels for conversational engagement. Consumers worldwide typically use four messaging channels, points out the report.  

Customer service activities are the top use cases — the customer service activities include customer care and support and customer satisfaction surveys, followed by operations activities and transactions tied to financial payments.    

The report stated that only 35% of organisations allow a customer to transfer from a chatbot to a live agent for enhanced support. Those who have implemented conversational customer engagement are much more likely to provide this fulfilling customer experience.   

“As enterprises emerge from dealing with the impact of Covid-19, re-architecting their IT infrastructure to leverage digital platforms will be a major priority, and customer experience is the top driver of these investments as it directly impacts the organisation’s bottom line,” stated Courtney Munroe, Research Vice President for Worldwide Telecommunications Research, IDC.  

Multichannel communications have empowered companies to connect with their customers on the channel of their choice, such as SMS, voice, email, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram. It’s through conversational customer engagement that businesses can accelerate CX innovation to build long-term loyalty and drive immediate revenue growth, the report said.