Wireless customers are taking their digital experience into their own hands. According to a report compiled by J.D. Power, Canadians are increasingly turning to online tools to resolve problems with their wireless carrier.
Four main insights were taken away from the results of the study.
In a saturated market, the importance of customer care is continuing to rise. Koodo Mobile ranks the highest on the 1000-point grading scale with a score of 798, up from 715 last year.
Koodo was followed by Videotron with a score of 790, whereas larger providers like Rogers and Bell came in last amongst those ranked with scores of 707 and 706. The industry average was a score of 738.
In addition, the results also demonstrated that online tools are beginning to surpass the traditional phone as a means for contacting carrier support personnel.
According to the report, one third of customer service complaints are conducted online, which shows an increase from 28 percent in 2015. The online customer care channel now surpasses each phone channel.
Furthermore, the report offered several indicators about how millennials prefer to contact their carrier’s customer service department. One of these includes the millennials preference to self-serve, allowing them to deal with issues whenever they need to.
Because millennials are mostly digitally connected, they were found to be much more likely to contact self-service enabled care channels than earlier generations. Four in ten millennials contacted their customer care online during the previous six months compared to 29 percent of other customers.
In addition, among millennials who do contact their carrier online, the use of the chat feature has risen from 45 percent in 2015 to 51 percent in 2016.
“Wireless carriers need to embrace the shift to online self-service across all customer segments to provide a gratifying experience that matches customer behaviours,” said Adrian Chung, director at J.D. Power.
She goes on to say that self-service tools are being developed across all platforms and will likely be used by all generational groups.
“While millennials have initially led the migration, customers across all generational groups are also being exposed to self-service tools with companies outside of telecom to resolve customer service issues in a timely and efficient manner. The task for carriers is to create awareness, educate customers and communicate the benefits of using these digital channels.”
The final insight involves the frequency with which millennials contact customer service, which is higher than other age groups.
The report states that millennials contacted customer service twice as often as baby boomers, with millennials making an average of 4.9 customer care calls per month and baby boomers making an average of 2.5.
The 2016 Canadian Wireless Customer Care study was conducted over two sessions; during August to September 2015 and March 2016. A total of 5500 wireless customers responded to the survey.
Related Reading: Regional carriers SaskTel and Videotron score high in new wireless network performance study
[source]J.D. Power[/source]
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