1,000 British adults aged 18-65 surveyed to identify the role and importance of customer service for online businesses.

The research showed that telephone remains the most popular way for customers to contact businesses, even those that trade solely online. Over 53% of people stated that the telephone was their preferred communication channel, compared to 48.0% who use email and other web channels and 16.5% who use traditional mail. Despite this, locating contact information on websites is a major issue for customers with 3 out 10 people stating that they have found it hard to find telephone numbers or mailing addresses on websites.

Security is cited as the reason for the popularity of telephone as a communication channel. 58.1% of people stated that they perceive personal information as being significantly more secure when given over the telephone than compared to the internet (50.7%) or traditional mail (51.1%).

Neville Upton, CEO, The Listening Company comments: “Overall the research shows that in this era of multi-communication, consumers are no longer allied to any particular mode of communication. They will select the most convenient or appropriate channel, regardless of how the business trades. As a result, brands need to provide their contact centre agents with the tools to seamlessly combine different communication channels such as telephone, email, vmail, web chat and SMS to communicate with the consumer and meet their expectations of service.”