The Customer Experience is Becoming Even More Important
Long gone are the high-flying days of the dot-com bubble. Today, high-tech companies have to fight long and hard to win business from consumers, as economic downturns give buyers even more power. Competition further pressures profit margins and commoditization makes it difficult for vendors to pursue a premium pricing strategy. To stay competitive and profitable, high-tech companies must provide quality customer service to differentiate their business and to reinforce their brand image.
Despite the acknowledged importance of customer service, the high-tech industry suffers from a high degree of customer dissatisfaction in this area.
Further, one high-tech sector — PC manufacturing — scored a 64 on call center satisfaction in a CFI Group survey, the lowest customer satisfaction score of all the industries surveyed, which included catalog sales, banking, cell phone service and cable and satellite TV providers. Also, according to the CFI Group survey, nearly a quarter of all callers hang up before their issue is resolved.
To Drive New Sales, High-Tech Companies Must Find New Ways to Reach Customers
For a variety of reasons, high-tech companies are having difficulty maintaining high growth rates. For example, trade shows, trade publications and direct mail deliver a fraction of the return on investment they did in years past. And the rate of online retail sales is slowing, as consumers are experiencing Internet fatigue and changing their buying habits. This is particularly problematic for computer hardware and software vendors who generate more than 40% of their sales on the Internet. To compensate, relationship building and cross-selling and up-selling of supplemental features, products and services are critical. To identify sales opportunities, high-tech companies should take advantage of every customer interaction in the contact center and do a better job of understanding customer behavior.
Inbound contact for service, both phone and Web-based, are often overlooked as chances to generate additional revenue. While these interactions provide excellent context to cross-sell and up-sell extended warranties and additional products and services, technology support centers are rarely equipped to close deals.
Beyond the technical support center, many high-tech companies may be losing sales by their inability to provide relevant information or assistance to customers who shop online. What’s more, attracting new customers is difficult because high-tech companies have trouble recognizing the demographic segments likely to become early adopters of new products, and customer retention is less than it should be because of failure to notify customers about contract and lease expirations.
Long gone are the high-flying days of the dot-com bubble. Today, high-tech companies have to fight long and hard to win business from consumers, as economic downturns give buyers even more power. Competition further pressures profit margins and commoditization makes it difficult for vendors to pursue a premium pricing strategy. To stay competitive and profitable, high-tech companies must provide quality customer service to differentiate their business and to reinforce their brand image.
Despite the acknowledged importance of customer service, the high-tech industry suffers from a high degree of customer dissatisfaction in this area.
Further, one high-tech sector — PC manufacturing — scored a 64 on call center satisfaction in a CFI Group survey, the lowest customer satisfaction score of all the industries surveyed, which included catalog sales, banking, cell phone service and cable and satellite TV providers. Also, according to the CFI Group survey, nearly a quarter of all callers hang up before their issue is resolved.
To Drive New Sales, High-Tech Companies Must Find New Ways to Reach Customers
For a variety of reasons, high-tech companies are having difficulty maintaining high growth rates. For example, trade shows, trade publications and direct mail deliver a fraction of the return on investment they did in years past. And the rate of online retail sales is slowing, as consumers are experiencing Internet fatigue and changing their buying habits. This is particularly problematic for computer hardware and software vendors who generate more than 40% of their sales on the Internet. To compensate, relationship building and cross-selling and up-selling of supplemental features, products and services are critical. To identify sales opportunities, high-tech companies should take advantage of every customer interaction in the contact center and do a better job of understanding customer behavior.
Inbound contact for service, both phone and Web-based, are often overlooked as chances to generate additional revenue. While these interactions provide excellent context to cross-sell and up-sell extended warranties and additional products and services, technology support centers are rarely equipped to close deals.
Beyond the technical support center, many high-tech companies may be losing sales by their inability to provide relevant information or assistance to customers who shop online. What’s more, attracting new customers is difficult because high-tech companies have trouble recognizing the demographic segments likely to become early adopters of new products, and customer retention is less than it should be because of failure to notify customers about contract and lease expirations.
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