According to study by BT and Avaya, the vast majority (79 per cent) in Asia-Pacific are ‘shopper swots’ who use the Internet to plan and research before purchasing. Over half (54 per cent) prefer self service to interacting with sales agents, and 79 per cent said that they would buy more from companies that make it easier to do business with in this way.

The research said that consumers in Asia-Pacific countries are increasingly autonomous and able to manage their own customer relationships, signalling a pressing need for companies to embrace a new multi-channel customer service approach.

These autonomous customers are also embracing new technology faster than the organisations that serve them, meaning they want timely, personalised access to services wherever they are, at any time of day and through any device.

The results suggest that newly autonomous customers are challenging the traditional contact centre model and reshaping the way organisations implement new technologies and multichannel strategies.

Although customers value speaking with knowledgeable agents, 70 per cent say they often know more about the product or problem than the agent in the organisation’s call centre. Additionally, consumers feel that phone (voice) transactions take up unnecessary time, with over 70 per cent viewing typical security measures as a disincentive to phoning customer service desks.

Multichannel is increasingly important, as consumers have an ever-growing list of technologies at their disposal when they choose to contact organisations. According to the research, 65 per cent of consumers continually change how they contact an organisation. The Internet is popular among consumers for its anonymity, speed and choice, and over half (52 per cent) generally prefer to deal with organisations online, although they will reach for the phone if they can’t resolve an issue.

The huge adoption of smartphones is creating opportunities for organisations to serve customers more effectively on and offline. For example, 44 per cent of smartphone users have called contact centres to seek advice after they’ve looked things up online or via an app on their smartphone, and 39 per cent have scanned products in store using their smartphone. This is especially true in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, which are systematically ranked in the top four places for the percentage of the population which uses a smartphone.

The research also found that social media is an emerging platform for customer service with 52 per cent having used social media to follow a company or learn more about their services, and 56 per cent saying they trust customer forums more than an organisation’s website.

Andrew Small, Vice President, unified communications and customer relationship management, BT Global Services, said: “It’s never been more important for brands and organisations to build lasting customer relationships. Pressure to stay up to speed with changing demands is increasing and companies need to look to new technologies to engage with their customers.  Understanding how customer behaviour is evolving will help organisations choose the right technology platforms to be able to satisfy enquires from increasingly demanding customers.”

“BT can help companies deliver a multi-channel communications strategy. By connecting agents with the latest social media and unified communications tools, contact centres can share their knowledge across multiple sites to create ‘networked experts’ who are much more able to satisfy these more complex enquires from any communication medium a customer should choose. That's true customer service.”

Chong Win Lee, Director of Contact Centre Solutions in Asia Pacific for Avaya said