As India’s consumption economy booms, customer experience faces significant challenges. According to a report by ServiceNow’s ‘Customer Experience Intelligence’, Indians spent 15 billion hours on hold in 2023, resulting in an economic loss of $55 billion.
The report highlighted that Indians are becoming less patient and increasingly frustrated with losing time on slow customer service by companies. On average, Indians spent more than 30 hours trying to resolve issues or complaints last year. If the problem does not get resolved within 3.9 days, customers are looking to switch brands, the report added.
ServiceNow, an AI platform for business transformation surveyed along with Lonergan Research across more than 4,500 Indians this year.
The survey discovered that at least 90% of individuals in India have had to spend time trying to resolve an issue or complaint with organizations in the Telecommunications (92%), Retail & E-commerce (90%), and Financial Services industries (90%). The average number of hours spent resolving an issue with each of these industries was over four hours (Telecommunications 4.3 hours, Retail 4.1 hours, Financial 4.2 hours).
88% of Indians have had to spend time trying to resolve an issue or complaint with household & utility services, and 81% of Indians have had to spend time trying to resolve issues or complaints with Government services. 60% of participants stated that having their issue resolved quickly was crucial for good customer service.
The report also discovered that 2-3rd of Indians have started believing in Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in customer service, almost 10% more than the increase in trust in in-person customer service (57%).
Sumeet Mathur, Vice President, and Managing Director at ServiceNow has suggested that Indian enterprises should make a shift to Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver “smooth” and “coherent” customer experiences. He added, “Enterprises should transition their business strategy from “How May I Help You?” to “How May ‘AI’ Help You?”. By embracing AI and automation, companies can build high-performing customer service teams, foster a customer-centric culture, and unlock substantial productivity gains”.
According to more than half of Indians, the most frustrating issue when dealing with customer service staff is having to repeat the issue/complaint to multiple people. Over two in five Indians believe some of the most frustrating issues when dealing with customer service staff are waiting on hold or being transferred to multiple people/departments.
However, 56% of the surveyed individuals said they were satisfied when they were dealing with a customer service team. 64% of participants said that being able to view the status of their inquiry/issue live through a digital notification during their interactions with customer service teams was one of the most important ways to create transparency.
As many as 48% of people in India would like to see better customer experience in their applications. Nearly 60% of Indians would like to see customer service teams improve their speed of resolution, the report mentioned.
Customer service lapses globally
Customer service lapses are a global issue, affecting markets worldwide. Sumeet Mathur told Storyboard18 that “Australians and New Zealanders spent 129 million hours on hold, leading to a $1.28 billion economic drain”. He said that even Singapore grapples with a $1.24 billion customer experience gap, primarily due to slow or substandard service.
“While the levels of customer service vary from region to region, some key tenets such as advanced technology integration, robust regulatory framework, and culture of customer centricity tend to set the common benchmarks of excellence,” he added.