Will Success of the internet and its traffic create customer services issues for your business?

A recent article on Bloomberg raised an interesting question: Will Netflix Kill the Internet?

As businesses expand offering via the web and customers continue to flock to the internet to shop and seek information and solutions, what will this mean to Contact Centers and their businesses?

The Bloomberg article states that Netflix’s 16 million customers are so eager to “stream” the latest available high definition video into their home that Netflix now accounts for a whopping 20% of all internet traffic on any given evening in America. The result? More activity, more requests, more requirements stretching and straining bandwidth as demand grows.

Oh sure… someone will figure out how to employ technology to make bandwidth faster… eventually. For the near term we may be seeing the beginning of slower response time and other issues that consumers will be facing. The same consumer that wants what they want… NOW!

The result… an increase in customer service calls to contact centers consisting of requests to handle their orders, issues, and questions. After all, when customers experience a problem or frustration due to “lack of an immediate response” because of a slower internet connection, who will they contact? The contact center! The impending effect will be that we will soon begin seeing an increase of incoming calls to the center. Noted technology experts are predicting that soon, demand may outstrip the ability to respond technologically with faster and economically priced broadband.

Are you and your contact center prepared for the potential increase and how to perhaps not only handle the customer’s frustration, but also place the order since they were able to speak with someone and get an immediate response?