Fourth, competition is the most significant force heightening the demand for better customer service. Fifth, training is a continuous ongoing process, not an event. Today there are 60,000 US call centers employing 3 million CSRs. Serving customers is, of course, crucial to all organizations. Yet, us companies satisfied their customers less well in '95 and '96 and stats are down again for '97.
Services continues to top the list in terms of consumer dissatisfaction.
More complex products, software, hardware, and broadening customer bases are forcing companies to re-evaluate how they do business, and highlighting the need to see service as a highly strategic part of every organization. Service has become a key factor in purchase and repurchase decisions, and therefore, directly impacts costs, revenues, and profits. This is not surprising. Services are essentially intangible processes. Customers are frequently searching for cues to help determine a company's capabilities.