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U.S. Toll-Free Services Markets
Frost & Sullivan, Sep 2003
Toll-free Service Providers Challenged by Web-based Customer Care Technologies
The continuation of toll-free services as a leading customer care platform is threatened by the growing deployment of online self-service customer care technologies such as e-mail and web-chat capabilities by various businesses/companies in the United States. These emerging technologies provide a cost-effective alternative to live agent customer support through toll-free numbers, resulting in declining usage of toll-free services on the part of the consumers and businesses.
This research examines the current trends in the U.S. toll-free services market. Special emphasis has been placed on identifying and analyzing trends in domestic toll-free services revenue, minutes of use (MOU), and product penetration in various vertical market segments such as finance, insurance, and travel and hospitality. Moreover, the research evaluates competitive product and marketing strategies of the various industry participants.
Increasing Use of Feature-rich Internet Self-help Services Impedes Toll-free Usage
The proliferation of the Internet as a 24x7x365 storefront has created strong competitive challenges for toll-free service providers. The growth of e-commerce has enabled customers to shop online without any help from customer service representatives of the e-tailers (electronic retailers). Even in situations where customers require assistance from an agent, the provision of online chat capabilities has reduced the usage of toll-free numbers.
While it is unlikely that the enterprise customers will abandon toll-free numbers altogether in favor of Web-based customer support, the inbound toll-free call volume and minutes of use is expected to continuously decline owing to intense competition from online customer care services, says the analyst.
Will Toll-free Services Remain a Leading Customer Care Platform?
The Internet and online communications tools such as e-mail mimic the value proposition offered by toll-free services. However, relatively low penetration of the Internet when compared to telephony continues to drive businesses toward subscription of toll-free services for customer care purposes. The fact that callers can access toll-free services free of charge from payphones, home and office phones, and wireless phones (excluding airtime charges) constitutes a key advantage of the service over Web-based customer care, says the analyst.
For a majority of businesses, toll-free services are likely to remain a viable channel for communication with various stakeholders. Voice interaction through toll-free services is expected to remain a primary communication medium in call centers, as migration to pure play Web-enabled call centers is taking place at a relatively slow pace.
Subscribers of toll-free services, especially large enterprises, demand network-based features and advanced functionalities such as number portability and customized routing capabilities as they endeavor to streamline operations and reduce communication costs. With toll-free services becoming increasingly homogeneous, service providers will be compelled to offer new value propositions in the near future to attract and retain customers.
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