Customers’ Need for Premium Technical Services: Consumer and Provider Perspectives

Accenture conducted a comprehensive research program among both global consumers and communications service providers to understand the opportunities for providers to participate in the market for delivering premium technical services. The research showed that consumers have substantial interest in receiving integrated technical support with heavy users of electronics expressing especially strong interest in receiving support via a variety of delivery channels. Communications service providers, meanwhile, generally understand the types of issues consumers want to see addressed by technical support services, but show misalignment with consumers on several issues.

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Accenture research shows that today’s consumers are engaged in an increasingly wide range of technology-based activities across their homes and businesses, and that there is a proliferation of new devices and new ways to interact with technology.¹ Accenture sought to understand the answers to several key questions posed to more than 3,000 consumers (representative across age, gender, education and occupation) in 21 countries.

• Do consumers perceive the need for unified technology support of multiple digital devices?
  
  
• What objectives do they have for such support?
  
  
• What are their current preferences about the best way to receive such support?
  
  
• Is there an opportunity for communications services providers to participate in the market to provide technical support?
  
  

Accenture conducted a phone survey with 59 C-suite executives at communications companies in 20 countries. Questions posed to the respondents include:

• What are the types of technical maintenance or support services communications service providers offer to consumers?
  
  
• In what form do they currently provide these services?
  
  
• In what form do they believe consumers would prefer to receive technical support service?
  
  
• At what point do they believe consumers prefer to purchase technical support service?
  
  
• What do providers believe consumers are willing to pay for such service?
  
  
• Do providers prefer to provide technical support services in-house or as an outsourced service?
  
  
• How well do providers believe they are positioned to offer these services in the minds of consumers versus other types of providers?
  
  

¹Accenture, “Finding Growth: Emergence of a New Consumer Technology Paradigm: The 2011 Accenture Consumer Electronics Products and Services Usage Report,” 2011.

The consumer revealed that consumers have very clear, well-articulated needs for premium technical services – needs that represent near-term opportunities for communications providers to participate in this market. Key findings include:

• There is significant consumer demand for integrated technical support that transcends any one device or family of devices.
  
  
• Consumers want this integrated technical support to address a wide range of computer issues.
  
  
• Consumers want integrated technical support to be delivered in a variety of modes.
  
  
• Heavy users of consumer electronics want more tech support options than other users, and have a substantial interest in remote-access tech support.
  
  
• Communications providers are reasonably well positioned to offer premium technology support services to consumers.
  
  

The provider survey revealed that communications service providers are very well-positioned technologically to deliver certain types of support services. However, they should accelerate this advantage to further strengthen their competitive position among other providers.

Providers do perceive that consumers welcome the opportunity to have one company provide technical support for most or all of their home and office electronic devices. However, they tend to misjudge the consumers’ perception on the variety of channels for technical support, the consumers’ willingness and the preferred timing to pay for some types of computer services.

Communications service providers have a significant opportunity to become leaders in the growing market for premium technical support services. To take advantage of this opportunity will require them to re-examine their preconceptions concerning how consumers prefer to receive such technical support. This includes better understanding consumers’ potential acceptance of the remote, preventive technical support that communications providers are best positioned to deliver.

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