(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Â The Internet is fast changing the purchasing behaviours of consumers in the Mena region, including Qatar. Nearly 33 percent of Mena region consumers now make online purchases, and industry analysts expect the value of e-commerce in the region to reach an estimated $15bn (QR55bn) by 2015, said a statement issued by Interactive Intelligence Group Inc, a Nsadaq listed global technology provider.
Even retail chains with established physical stores are looking to engage their customers through online channels giving them the ability to browse, select and purchase products of their choice from the convenience of their homes.
Shaheen Haque (pictured), Territory Manager, Middle East & Turkey, at Interactive Intelligence, says that to achieve the difficult task of building customer loyalty when the primary means of interaction is no longer a physical location, Qatari companies must look at new ways to engage with customers. While the initial transaction may happen through a web portal, a consumer should be able to quickly resolve any issues by contacting the call centre and receive a high level of service. The customer experience process can range from ordering a product on the website to calling for a refund.
He believes that business can build loyalty though customer service excellence. The types of channels that e-commerce organizations, or for that matter all companies offer their customers have been changing over the past decade.
While phone interactions remain the dominant method of issue resolution, industry research indicates that the adoption of email, chat, and web interactions are now available in some form in over 90 percent of contact centres. However, the level of service being offered on these other channels varies widely across the contact centre landscape.
If organisations hope to build a market differentiating multi-channel customer service model, they must bring together processes, people, technology, culture, and information. In order to build such a service ecosystem, companies need to focus their efforts in certain areas. By applying some, if not all, of the suggestions listed below, companies can optimise the customer service experience.
He also advised to have "data filter" strategy for all channels including social media. Social media noise needs to be filtered by a distinct set of criteria - from influencers to sentiment, and from trends to categorization of conversations. The increase of social conversations needs to be supplemented with workflow and business process so that conversations are managed with different channel options.
However, not all Twitter or Facebook conversations need to end up in the call centre - doing so could significantly increase the cost of operation. Therefore, the "data filter" needs to happen not just with social media but also with all the other channels. In addition, e-commerce can be promoted by improving website traffic and page views, use of mobile applications and technologies that is agile in the cloud or on-premise, and also by implementing unified methods of communications.
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