Avaya Spotlights Personalized Customer Experiences at ICMI's ACCE Conference & Expo

NEW ORLEANS, La. – ACCE Conference & Expo— Contact centers are evolving as customers increase their demands for more responsive, higher quality customer service in an 'always on,' multimedia world. Avaya Inc., a global provider of business communications and collaboration solutions and services, spotlights these changes at ICMI's ACCE 2011 Conference & Expo—the annual global gathering for the contact center community—and shares new strategies and research to address emerging trends towards personalized customer experiences.

At this year's ACCE event (Avaya Booth #501, June 13 – 15th) in New Orleans, La., Avaya demonstrates its contact center innovations, including Avaya Aura Contact Center, a multimedia work assignment application connecting customers to the right agent or expert via any communications mode, and Social Media Manager, an application that automates the process of scanning social media content, and analyzes it for relevance and ability to take action. Additionally, the company's vice president of product marketing for contact centers, Jorge Blanco, delivers a keynote address (June 15th, 12:30 pm CT) discussing best practices for multimedia contact centers, and the importance of understanding a customer’s context to drive personalized experiences.

Avaya Contact Center Consumer Preference Study
Blanco's address will include results of a new global Avaya Contact Center Consumer Preference Study, commissioned by Avaya and conducted by callcentres.net. The study asked more than 5,000 contact center consumers from around the world their thoughts on customer service topics. Key global results include:
40% of global consumers prefer alternate methods of contact—including web chat, self-service, and text messaging—to phone-based customer service.
55% of consumers said that in 1 to 2 years, email is what they will use regularly to reach customer service centers. This is compared to 15% who said email is their most often used method today.
18% said web chat will be their preferred regularly-used contact method in 1 to 2 years, vs. just 2 percent who said it’s their most often used method today.
86 percent of consumers said that they are likely to tell friends, family or colleagues about a poor customer service center experience.
Results were also measured for U.S.-based consumers. Key U.S. findings include:
Half of U.S. consumers surveyed are likely to opt to use an automated voice response system when offered.
90% of U.S. consumers will tell friends, family or colleagues about a poor customer service experience.
Just 20% said they receive excellent customer service from call centers.
Quick query resolution is the top rated reason U.S. consumers will rate a customer experience as excellent.