Digital teams waste two months a year on digital escalations with no business impact according to a new Quantum Metric report

• 28% of leaders see executive escalations interrupt half of their weekly digital priorities.

• 47% see less than half their teams as digital experts, inhibiting their ability to prioritize issues.

• Findings show even an incremental improvement could lead up to five hundred thousand in monthly cost savings.

Quantum Metric, the customer-driven digital analytics platform, today released findings from its latest report, The Efficiency Index, shedding light on the challenges and opportunities surrounding digital efficiency and cost optimization. Based on survey responses from digital leaders across the globe, the latest report uncovers how distractions such as executive escalations, false positives and misalignment are costing companies and preventing them from meeting heightened efficiency demands.

Digital teams are under increasing pressure to streamline costs while driving growth. However, identifying the right areas to prioritize remains a challenge, as customer demands continue to evolve. Findings show that unnecessary executive escalations, such as forwarding website complaints from friends or relatives, interrupt half of digital priorities each week for 28% of leaders. The average digital team is spending at least a day a week on executive escalations, but only seeing 25% or less of those digital issues have an actual impact on their business. This amounts to the average digital team wasting two months each year just on escalations. Additionally, in the last six months, 32% of digital teams spend two weeks or more on false positives, and 44% spend the same amount of time manually reproducing issues.

Limited expertise across digital teams and the reliance on certain team members restricts their ability to effectively prioritize and respond quickly. In fact, the report finds 47% see less than half their members as digital experts. Added to this 62% say it takes at least a month or more for a new hire to have enough job expertise to efficiently troubleshoot digital issues on their own, costing already lean teams additional time.

By enhancing digital expertise and understanding the impact of experiences, digital teams can minimize costs and transition from reactive to proactive customer service. Findings show even incremental improvements can yield significant cost savings. A 25% improvement in mean time to resolution could save up to $100K per month, while a 50% improvement could save up to $500K per month.

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“The need for efficiency isn’t a new benchmark for digital teams, but its impact on customer retention and long-term business stability is more critical than ever,” said Mario Ciabarra, CEO of Quantum Metric. “In today’s market, digital organizations need to move fast to meet the changing expectations of customers and have an effective understanding of how to prioritize digital needs that have real value for the business and the customer. Success depends on arming every team member with the right digital expertise to understand and empathize with every customer experience, every time.”

Other key findings include:

• Primary time wasters: Inefficient digital management not only impacts team costs but also hampers customer loyalty and retention. Identifying the root cause of an issue (30%) and determining priorities (30%) are the most significant time wasters for digital teams. Moreover, “help & support” (27%) and “account management” (20%) emerge as the primary problem areas in the digital experience, requiring considerable time and attention.
• The difference in team efficiency: When asked who is the most efficient and inefficient team, technology/IT and customer experience teams were the most common answers. The biggest difference between an efficient and inefficient team came down to their ability to understand how their work impacts business KPIs (36%) and their ability to prioritize projects based on business KPIs (32%).
• The power of generative AI: When it comes to improving training efficiency and honing digital expertise across teams, leaders believe AI will have a significant impact. In fact, 84% of leaders say new technologies and tech solutions, including generative AI and other guided analytics tools, are already changing the way leaders foster digital expertise.

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