2012 Channel Predictions: Rise of Chat and Mobile

One of my most popular blog topics is channel traffic. It is fascinating to see how the percentage of interactions by phone, email, chat, web, etc., evolves every year. I’m doing a webcast with LivePerson on Thursday, “Servicing Today’s Connected Customer: The Importance of Multi-Channel Engagement Strategies,” in which I will reveal my estimate for channel volumes in 2012. Here’s the link to register:

http://webcasts.tsia.com/home/listing/tabid/64/listingkey/141/servicing_todays_connected_customer_the_importance_of_multichannel_engagement_strategies.aspx

As a teaser, here is the most accurate picture I can create of channel traffic for TSIA members for 2011, using actual numbers from our benchmark database as well as the annual social media survey.

The numbers are pretty close to what we expected for 2011, with chat making its first appearance in B2B with 2%, and social media (which for this graphic includes online customer forums as well as interactions through social channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) used for 9% of customer issues. Email is at 16%, and I continue to hear from members that they are on a mission to reduce email traffic, migrating it to chat or the forum.

I’m expecting modest growth to social media and chat for 2012; tune in to the webcast Thursday for the numbers.

Also on the webcast is something really sexy–examples of how Cisco Linksys is chatting with customers via a smart phone chat interface. This allows customers to interact with support anytime, from anywhere, providing an excellent customer experience–especially for customers who are smartphone addicts. I love seeing how mobility continues to force service to evolve, and as I’ll be talking about at our TSW conference in Las Vegas next month, video is now accelerating mobile adoption.

Please tune in Thursday for our 2012 channel predictions, as well as some case studies in companies that are handling customers across channels, all on a single platform, providing a fantastic customer experience. And as always, thanks for reading!

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