• by Aaron Baar , March 14, 2017

Companies and consumers are facing a disconnect when it comes to how the latter want to receive support from the former. 

According to a survey from DeviceBits (which makes software that helps companies with self-support materials), two-thirds of consumers said they would be interested in using a self-service format for their customer service needs, and a just over a third of them would like to log in online and search for customer service answers. However, many of those companies are not providing that service.

“It's clear that consumers, who have grown accustomed to self-support in a search-engine environment, now also want the customer service function of their favorite brands to follow a similar suit,” says DeviceBits CEO JC Ramey. Driven by mobile, social media and search engines, consumers across all demographics are looking for ways to answer their own customer service questions on their own time, he says. What is lacking from companies is a sense of personalization, particularly through Web sites. 

According to a second survey, about 58% of companies regularly field customer service inquiries via social media, which offers personalized service options. Only about 13%, however, offer the same personalized customer self-support (which does not include chat) online via their website. 

The difficulty, Ramey says, is fielding data through Web site traffic. While social media can provide a clear picture into a customer’s information, it’s much harder to find through typical Web site traffic. Yet consumers are looking for the answers they want, when they want them, with little fuss, he says. 

“For a customer who is coming in our evaluating a [phone], those that are 65 or older may have things they care about that are different from 18-year-olds,” Ramey tells Marketing Daily. The solution, he says, is to glean as much information about current and potential customers as possible to turn that into “personalized” information. “The ability to personalize content is key,” he says.