Intercom survey reveals poor tools during pandemic exacerbates burnout among support teams

A new survey from Customer Communications platform, Intercom, reveals that the pandemic has widened the gap between customer expectations and support team capabilities, with 75% of support teams noticing an increase in customer expectations throughout the pandemic, but only 34% are confident they can meet those expectations with their current tools.

The report surveyed 1,209 Customer Support Leaders from Ireland, the UK and the US on the strategies and tools they’re using to improve experiences for their customers since the onset of the pandemic.

The scale at which businesses need to provide empathy has accelerated and support teams need the right tools to provide this and improve the digital customer experience. Busy, burned-out support teams can’t afford to go it alone anymore. They need a virtual hand from chatbots and automation to provide fast, personal, contextual support at scale.

Some of the top stats that the report uncovered suggest that Covid-19 has negatively impacted the customer experience:

• 73% of customer support leaders say that technology, such as automated support tools, can help improve employee engagement and attrition rates on their support team in 2022.

• 52% of organisations had to decrease their customer support headcount due to COVID-19.

• 48% of those organisations say the headcount decrease negatively affected customer experience

Speaking on the results of the survey, Intercom’s Director of Customer Support, Bobby Stapleton says: “Today, when the majority of a customer’s interactions with a brand is online, providing fast, personal customer support is more critical than ever. The savvy businesses that are embracing change and adapting their customer support tools, technology, processes, and recruitment are thriving. They will continue to do so for the year ahead and beyond.”

Sixty four percent of over-stretched support teams have felt burned-out over the last 12 months, this, coupled with the fact that the customer support job market is red-hot has forced talented employees to leave their jobs in droves. Intercom’s recent Holiday Shopping Experience Report found that 52% of support leaders are considering leaving their jobs. As we emerge from the pandemic, business leaders must assess the inadequacies of their customer experience capabilities and implement measures to fight against team burnout, and attrition in the midst of the “Great Resignation”.

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