Even if working from home is not continued in future after the situation improves, digital transformation is here to stay, a new report by Infobip, a global cloud communication platform, predicts.
With the rise of remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 marked the start of a major digital transformation for many businesses in the Asia Pacific: Since employees had to work from home, the customer experience and customer experience processes had to be digitised.
The company’s prediction, based on a survey of 2,760 professionals in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Thailand, Viet Nam, and the Philippines, found that while companies intend to implement some changes permanently, they face challenges.
Around 54 per cent of respondents cited the increase in support enquiries as a top challenge faced by customer support last year.
Sixty per cent said employee training is a top consideration in adopting a digital customer support system.
In 2020, as countries began lockdowns, businesses turned to remote working and 58 per cent of respondents said they were being able to better cope with demand through remote working.
More companies are improving their customer communications by integrating chat into their larger communications strategies.
Pham Gia Dan, business development director at Infobip, said: “Companies that have adopted digital tools to help them stay relevant in the mind of their customers have seen a positive impact overall last year. Viet Nam recorded the highest utilisation of platforms and channels to provide customer service of all the countries surveyed. This may attest to their readiness to move further into digital transformation.
“We see great digital potential for the country, and now is a strategic time for businesses to start looking into activating a full suite of omnichannel solutions and well equipping their workforce to enable connected customer experiences.”
But the survey found that the customer experience industry is possibly experiencing a skills gap: In all the markets, respondents listed employee training as the top consideration in adopting a digital customer support system.
A closer perusal of the data shows that the increase in support channels, management of new support channels and lack of familiarity with new channels are among the common digital technology challenges.
In Viet Nam, 51 per cent of the respondents cited increase in support channels and 38 per cent of them cited unfamiliarity with new channels as challenges in coping with customer service support. — VNS