Customers want UK Contact Centres to Ring the Changes

9 in 10 UK shoppers believe that customer contact centres are “ineffective at dealing with issues”.

Most customers expect to wait for a short period of time before their call is answered, but 1 in 3 say that, if the waiting time is more than 10 minutes, they will hang up and never call back.  On average, customers say that a wait of up to  2 ½ minutes is acceptable.  

However, most customers agree that they are more likely to stay on hold for longer if they are given some indication of how long they can expect to wait – either by being told their place in the queue or the current average hold time.
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly, repetitive ‘hold music’ remains a major cause for complaint, with 3 in 4 customers describing it as “irritating”.

In these days of multi-channel communication, contact centre agents provide customer service not just on the phone, but via email and live chat services.  For customers, age is a strong guide to their preferred method of communication.  2 in 3 shoppers aged 65+ prefer to resolve issues by speaking to an agent on the phone, while 3 in 4 18-24 year olds would, given the choice, opt for either email or social media.

Melanie Darvall, Marketing Director at Whistl, said: “It’s important to have the tools available to meet the needs of the demographics of your customer base and to engender a ‘can-do’ culture within customer service departments, whether it’s face-to-face, over the phone, via social media or on live chat."

How can MSB help?

Whether the contact centre is in-house or outsourced, MSB has a strong track record of supporting our clients to:

• map the customer journey
• identify how processes can be improved
• create tailored conversation templates which reflect the latest customer service thinking
• pinpoint training needs
  
  

To find out more, visit the customer experience page on our website – www.msbconsultancy.com