80% of UK Businesses Don't Have Mobile Support Apps

Note from the editor:  We've spent a good deal of time this month exploring the state of mobile customer support in the U.S., but how do other countries around the world compare?  This post from our colleagues in the U.K. (which originally appeared here) shares some research around adoption rates for mobile support.  Do the results surprise you? Share you thoughts in the comments below.

60% of UK residents now own a smartphone, so with just 20% of businesses taking advantage of mobile customer service apps, are the rest missing out?

A few months ago, together with ProtocallOne and Genesys, we surveyed our audience with the intention of finding out how contact centers and customer service departments are managing the emergence of new contact channels into the business.

Among the results, we were astonished to learn that 80% of businesses do not yet have a customer service mobile application.

However, Damian Kelly of Speechstorm told a captive audience at the ProtoCallOne/Genesys The smartphone and multi-channel contact center event back in September, perhaps it’s not that surprising or such a bad thing. Firstly, the huge uptake in mobile devices doesn’t necessarily denote a market that is ready for the next step in technology capability. Secondly, it is so much time to take the time to build develop and implement a digital strategy, rather than to do something for the sake of doing something.

Other results to come out of the survey:

• 40% of respondents say their customers can shift seamlessly from one channel to the next some of the time, while a further 20% can’t at all.
  
• Over 60% of respondents say that their agents are multi-skilled at handling various channels.
  
• A further 60% of respondents would like to implement new channels that their customers are migrating to naturally.
  
• When asked what channels they are going to implement in 2014, 30% said mobile applications, 36% said web chat and 28% said web applications such as self service.
  

To learn more about the results of the survey, please download the whitepaper, Naked truth: Investment lacking in mobile customer service apps.

More Resources

• Research Report: A Mobile Customer Service Strategy: The Contact Center, the Agent, and the Challenges of Implementation
  
• Whitepaper: Build a Mobile Customer Service Strategy
  
• ICMI Contact Center Symposium: New Courses in Nashville
  
• ICMI Virtual Course: Contact Center Metrics: What Metrics Metrics Matter and Why