Ninety-four per cent of UK consumers say personalised answers will make them more loyal – with 84% switching to competitors if responses disappoint, according to Eptica research.

Despite this, brands are failing to deliver the information that consumers need – 86% say they are unhappy with the responses they receive across every channel, while 70% complain that they get inconsistent answers between channels.

Those are the headline findings of the 2018 Eptica Knowledge Management Study, which found that consumers have rising expectations when it comes to getting information and answers from brands – and that companies are struggling to meet their needs:

• 91% of consumers say they are annoyed when questions aren’t answered satisfactorily
• 88% want greater transparency from brands
• 75% say customer service agents don’t have the information needed to answer their queries
• 65% have more complex, detailed questions compared to 5 years ago

“The power of knowledge has never been more important to brands, it is essential for deploying artificial intelligence and Natural Language Processing to automate customer engagement as well as to empower agents,” said Olivier Njamfa, CEO and Co-Founder at Eptica. “As our research shows, not meeting customer expectations will directly impact your bottom line. Companies need to take a holistic approach to customer service knowledge, using AI to make their knowledge work for them, ensuring that consumers get the right answers, whether via self-service, a chatbot, or even the phone.”

With websites often the first point of call for information, consumers want to be able to find answers quickly and with minimum effort. Over nine in ten (91%) become frustrated if they cannot rapidly find an answer online. 90% want to be able to find the answer without searching through multiple locations or leaving the page they are on to find it, showing the need for effective web self-service solutions. 65% of consumers say they’ll pick up the phone if they can’t get an online answer, adding to their frustration, and also increasing costs for the brand.

A full report, including the study results, graphics and best practice recommendations for brands to transform how they use knowledge within customer experience is available at https://www.eptica.com/kmbl.