"We recommend to clients to do post-transaction surveys," he told CRMDaily.com, "whether interactions are through a contact center, Internet chat or self-service."

Gathering customer service data can alert businesses to problems in many areas. Five of them are described in Part 1 of this article. Following are another five reasons customers may be ditching a firm and cozying up to its competitors.

Reactive Service

Waiting for customers to call back to follow up on a question or problem is a big mistake. Many of them may not bother, according to Deloitte Consulting's Mark Peacock, and those who do often resent having to.

"I've heard stories of [customers] who keep notebooks full of notes tracking service calls to companies," he told CRMDaily. "Companies know that's not right, but they can't seem to help themselves."

Shankardass said that setting expectations with a customer can go a long way toward turning reactive service into proactive service. Customers should not have to guess how long they will have to wait until the next call, e-mail, statement or contact event, he explained. They should know up front how the entire service process will go.

Locked into a Single Channel

Deloitte's Nidal Haddad told CRMDaily that he includes video conferencing, kiosks and wireless self-service on the list of technologies customers would like to use to access companies -- not just the telephone and Web. But consistency is key. One quick way to irritate a customer is to give different answers to the same question posed through different channels.

ATG vice president of technology Fumi Matsumoto told CRMDaily that portal technology can go a long way toward making sure that the information provided through multiple channels is consistent.

"Pricing changes, business rules, ad banners -- these are all assets that need to be managed just like Web content ," he said. "They all should go through a workflow that includes creation, editing, authorization and deployment." Of course, deployment means making the same information available to all customer touchpoints, not just telephone representatives.

Dealing with Confusing IVRs

If a customer chooses an alternate contact channel, it should be as easy to use, or easier, than calling a live representative. According to recent contact center benchmarking data from the Purdue Center for Customer-Driven Quality, about one-third of self-service interactions occur through interactive voice response (IVR) systems. (continued...)

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