Avaya has revealed that consumers in Asia Pacific are showing a clear increase in their preference to interact with businesses via sophisticated contact center communications technologies such as smartphone applications, e-mail and web self-service. 

The findings were revealed in Avaya’s annual Contact Center Consumer Index which reported 42 per cent of Singaporean consumers, 35 per cent of Australian and 31 per cent of Japanese consumers have indicated that they prefer to use other methods such as web chat and web self-service, rather than traditional phone conversations, to contact a customer service center. 

Amongst contact center technologies, the increased preference for email has shown significant gains on previous years. 21 per cent of consumers in Singapore listed e-mail as the channel used most often to contact the hospitality industry, while Japanese consumers (24 per cent) and Australian consumers (12 per cent) indicated that they prefer using e-mail to contact retail organizations. 

Smart Phone Applications are the new channel that consumers suggested they would most like to use in the future to interact with a contact center. If this service is offered, it would be especially welcomed in Singapore where 76 per cent indicated that this was their preference; while only 39 per cent of Australian consumers and 37 per cent of Japanese consumers agreed. The use of such alternative channels, besides traditional phone conversation to interact with customer service centers, has demonstrated that if businesses want to meet the changing preferences of consumers, they’ll need to evolve the range of channels available. 

“Customer experiences are critical, yet most businesses are not aware of the disconnect they’ve with their own customers. Businesses need to evaluate their current contact center offering, and understand what they can do to help enhance the customer service experience and anticipate the changing needs of consumers,”said Chong Win Lee, Contact Center Solutions LeaderAvaya APAC