AI search company Yext has announced the results of a new survey into American consumers’ preferences and behaviours around online customer support.
Yext’s enterprise search platform allows people to ask questions of businesses in natural language and includes a feature for customer support use cases known as Support Answers. Its customers include the likes of Verizon, Vanguard, Subway, Marriott, the U.S. State Department and the World Health Organisation.
The new study surveyed over 1,500 US consumers. Among the key findings were that 85% of those surveyed said that being able to find information and resolve a problem themselves was either fairly or very important. Only 40% preferred to contact companies directly as opposed to finding information on a company’s website.
Other findings included:
- That the biggest problems with help sites were an inability to understand questions (60%), the presence of unrelated search results (53%), out-of-date or inaccurate information (39%), and being difficult to use (24%)
- 62% said they might purchase from another company either occasionally, frequently, or very frequently if a business could not answer their questions on their help site
- If a site search fails, 69% would go to a different channel, such as calling, live chat or email
“Our research validated what we’ve been observing first-hand as we innovate solutions for customer support teams: a major disconnect between consumers’ preferences and behaviour,” said Joe Jorczak, Head of Industry for Service and Support at Yext.
“Consumers want to find answers to their questions independently, but their preferred method of self-serve has let them down too many times, simply because most businesses aren’t equipped with technology that’s powerful enough. What businesses can take away from our findings is that empowering customers to self-serve can significantly improve bottom lines, brand loyalty, and customer retention.”
The company recently announced integrations with Zendesk, enabling Yext’s multi-algorithmic search to be used with Zendesk-powered help centres.
