Parks Associates has released a new whitepaper, Next-Generation Support: Building an Engagement Platform, which finds over 33 percent of CE device owners report experiencing problems with their device over the past year. The whitepaper notes that even as these problems could extend to damage a brand’s reputation, they present an opportunity for service providers and device manufacturers to launch new support strategies that can secure new business and loyal customers by delivering superior support and smart home experiences.
“Technical problems with devices can impact brand loyalty — 29 percent of consumers who indicate their devices were difficult to set up ended up switching to a different brand. Brand abandonment rose to 49 percent when consumers reported setup was very difficult,” says Patrice Samuels, senior analyst, Parks Associates. “Building a positive brand experience is no longer limited to the operation of a single product. An entire ecosystem of connected devices and services influences a customer’s experience, and a service provider or manufacturer has to account for all these factors.”
Problems with connectivity are the leading issues among connected device owners, which can lower consumer confidence in devices and services that promise to deliver security, safety, or health use cases. Proactive support is important for managing the consumer experience with these devices. Thirty-three percent of smart home device owners find a proactive service that resolves technical problems highly appealing.
“Support services are instrumental for building and sustaining valuable customer relationships,” Samuels says. “As brands seek to leverage support to build better customer relationships, they must transform these services in several ways to address issues more proactively and make it easier for consumers to access and receive support.”
The whitepaper details proactive support solutions, as well as self-help and professional support solutions that diagnose and resolve technical problems. Additional research from Next-Generation Support: Building an Engagement Platform:
- Over 50 percent of consumers who set up smart home devices on their own experience a problem.
- Only 47 percent of U.S. broadband households that received technical support services over the past 12 months are very satisfied with the speed at which their problem was resolved and the resources available to the agent to address their concern.
To download this whitepaper, visit https://www.parksassociates.com/whitepapers/next-gen-wp2020.
