Dive Brief:

• More than half of consumers would rather do “anything else” than contact customer service, according to a Genesys report released Tuesday. 
• When CX leaders have a customer service issue, they, too, are eager to avoid contacting customer service. Half had the same response as the consumer survey respondents. Genesys surveyed more than 1,500 CX and business leaders and over 5,800 consumers.
• “As CX leaders, we're consumers too, so we know what good looks like,” Janelle Binder, SVP of customer engagement and advocacy at Genesys, told CX Dive. “It's just getting to that that is easier said than done sometimes.”

Dive Insight:

Customers aren’t satisfied with their customer service experiences, and CX leaders are aware that those experiences are lacking. 

Consumers are “still dealing with disconnected experiences, disconnected journeys,” Binder said. “It's not just about a good experience within an interaction. Consumers are looking at it as ‘What's my experience overall?’ in my end-to-end journey.”

Handoffs are a source of friction. Nearly all consumers — 95% — expect brands to have their information accessible across channels so they don’t have to repeat themselves. However, nearly half of companies do not pass data from digital agents to human representatives, according to Genesys.

A Liveops survey from June also found discontent with handoffs. It found that only 10% of consumers say handoffs from automated support to a live agent are always smooth. Customers’ No. 1 complaint about handoffs was having to explain their issues again. 

“They might start to interact in a web chat, maybe they get a subpar experience with a chatbot, try to transition to a voice call, and then run into delays on hold, have to start all over again, and have to repeat themselves,” Binder said. 

Brands have data about their customers across different channels — the tricky part is connecting them. 

“I think one of the main challenges that companies face is not just having the newest technology in one of those areas, but being able to coordinate across all of those components so that those systems can work together,” Binder said. That way “you can have that consolidated view of the consumer, leveraging AI real time to be able to understand.”

Poor customer service doesn’t just leave a customer frustrated, it also hurts future sales: 85% of consumers say they have reduced spending or stopped frequenting a brand after a poor experience.