Failing online customer care services are costing carriers over half a million Euros a year, subscriber management firm WDS estimates.
The firm claims 32% of mobile user calls to care centers are from customers who failed to solve their problem using online help pages, and estimates European operators are wasting €510 million ($697.3 million) a year in unnecessary support costs.
Sites that work properly can offset up to half of an operator’s support traffic away from call centers, WDS claims.
However, many websites are not linked to operators’ contact centers, resulting in problems including inaccurate, incomplete, hard to find, and non-existent information.
Tim Deluca-Smith, vice president of marketing at WDS, says the management structure means many online help pages “have very little exposure to the real support issues customers are facing and are typically only able to resolve 40% of problems effectively.”
WDS’ estimates come a few days after industry experts revealed usage of online help pages is surging resulting in concerns for the future of current call centers.
Deluca-Smith notes many of the websites are not set up in the same way as call centers, which typically place high value on resolving customer queries on the first call. “[T]here are very few metrics deployed on self-care sites outside of basic traffic monitoring,” he says.