The Tide Has Turned: Nuance RESEARCH FINDS Most Consumers Would Rather Self-Serve Over Speaking with A Live Agent

News release:


Consumer Preference for Self-Service is Trending hard, Opening New Opportunities for Companies to Deliver Better Customer Service

BURLINGTON, Mass., – May 10, 2012 – Nuance Communications, Inc., today announced…

WHAT: As customer self-service continues to become more commonplace given the surge of mobile apps from companies across the globe, consumers are getting on board. According to a recent survey commissioned by Nuance Research and conducted by Vocal Laboratories Inc. (Vocalabs), 2 out of 3 consumers prefer self-service over speaking to a person for customer service inquiries.

The survey also highlighted convenience to be the largest contributing factor with 75 percent of consumers saying that they find self-service to be more convenient as compared to the mere six percent who felt that speaking to a person is always more convenient.

Additionally, the consumer experience is materially influencing perceptions of the company. The vast majority of participants (92 percent) felt a company was innovative after “good” customer service experiences when using the company’s mobile app. An overwhelming majority (89 percent) said that they felt those companies were customer focused, with 88 percent saying that they felt such companies were easy to do business with, and another 86 percent stating they had high confidence in the strength of these companies.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, companies whose mobile apps deliver “bad” customer service experiences suffer a nearly-equal and opposite effect. When consumers have a bad customer experience, they 81 percent of consumers felt discouraged from wanting to use the app in the future, while 77 percent questioned their ability to serve customers, and another 73 percent have a lower opinion of the company. More than half (58 percent) said that they want to switch to a different company after a bad customer experience on their mobile app.

“The opportunities for companies to better serve their customers have never been greater. This latest research underpins that consumers are more and more preferring to self-serve over speaking with a person,” said Dan Nordale, vice president, enterprise marketing of Nuance Communications. “We’ve found that companies that offer voice-enabled solutions to make self-service interactions faster and easier, especially in the mobile channel, are enjoying a significantly positive impact on their brand and business.”

The survey also found that a sticking point for consumers was identity verification, with 68 percent citing that the need to verify their identity more than once with customer service was “frustrating.” This sentiment underscores the need for security-focused technologies like voice biometrics, which gives each individual a unique voiceprint that can be automatically identified once a person speaks, eliminating the hassle of remembering and then typing in passwords on virtual keyboards, or having to repeatedly provide customers identifiers such as date of birth, social security codes or other passwords.

WHO: Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visitwww.nuance.com.