South African organisations tempted to follow global trends towards customer self-service (by expanding their customer contact channels to include social media and mobile options) could be wasting significant funds in doing so.
Merchants, a leading business process outsourcing solution provided specialising in customer experience, recently commissioned research examining, for the first time, customer experience in South Africa.
The research revealed only 11% of the respondents preferred self-service channels to traditional service channels (such as a branch, contact centre agents and email). Of the self-service technologies, ATMs ranked most popular, followed by contact centre interactive voice response (IVR). Only 2% of respondents chose website and mobile phone self-service.
This contrasts strongly with global trends, where the pervasiveness of broadband and smartphones has revolutionised the way business is done.
The research reflected typical South Africans - aged between 18 and 40 and earning between R2 000 and R15 000 a month. Awareness of social media and usage of smartphones is high amongst this group. Theoretically, therefore, there should be no resistance to using such technologies for self-service.
However, the research, which is based on consumer perception and the related white paper, Self-service: a South African perspective, shows that the inhibiting factor is not technology.
Even among high living standard measures (LSM) groups in South Africa, where self-service in general is growing and adoption of self-service through contact centre IVRs is high, Internet self-service is relatively low and self-service through social media and smart phone applications almost non-existent.
The banking sector provides some clues. Private and investment banks enjoy a high adoption rate of Internet-based self-service. Uptake in retail banking is lower because lower LSM groups have limited access to the Internet.
However, cellphone ownership is ubiquitous across all LSM groups. So mobile banking should be an obvious choice. However, while mobile banking adoption has been rapid in African countries such as Kenya, success rates have been lower in South Africa - despite cellphone penetration in South Africa being higher.
The Merchants white paper makes a direct link between rates of uptake and supply and demand: "Customers need incentives to adopt a new self-service channel, especially as it requires additional knowledge and a shift in customer behaviour."
In Kenya, there are very few conveniently located bank branches; therefore, customers see a clear benefit in adopting the mobile banking channel. In South Africa, banks are expanding their branch networks to gain market share in rural areas. There is no significant incentive to use mobile money.
In South Africa, a major factor in positive customer experience is human contact - via the telephone or over a counter. The white paper therefore makes the point that, to get the cost benefits of self-service channels, organisations must ensure that self-service channels significantly enhance service delivery effectiveness to compensate the customer for the loss of personal service.
It makes clear that organisations need to see self-service channels as a strategic factor and do the necessary market research before investing in additional infrastructure.
