Sixty percent of customers ditch a company for poor telephone customer service

More than six in ten customers have ditched a company because its telephone customer service has been so bad.

The poll by Natterbox found that internet providers were the most unpopular, with one in five respondents (22 percent) saying they had cancelled their services because of a frustrating phone experience. Mobile phone companies came in second place, with 20 percent of frazzled customers withdrawing their custom. Telephone companies (15 percent), energy suppliers (13 percent) and banks (10 percent) had also seen their customers go elsewhere. In total, 62 percent of UK consumers had cancelled some kind of service because of a poor telephone experience.

The survey also revealed that despite the boom in social media customer service, telephone contact was still the favourite method for UK consumers. Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents said they preferred to communicate with a company by phone, compared with 28 percent choosing email. By contrast, just 4 percent said they preferred to use Twitter to contact customer service departments.

Neil Hammerton, CEO at Natterbox, commented: “Almost everyone is on social networks these days but the telephone is still king when it comes to customer service. There’s nothing like being able to speak to another human being to get a problem resolved. But with this reliance on call centres comes pressure to deliver the goods quickly and professionally. Busy consumers don’t have the time or patience to tolerate shoddy service and it only takes one bad experience to lose their custom for good.

“As businesses increasingly move their operations online and away from the high street, the telephone contact centre is often their only personal interaction with the customer, so it’s vital to get it right. There is pressure to control costs but technology exists now that can streamline the caller experience, automatically putting them through to the right person, first time. Nowadays there should be no excuse to leave frustrated customers hanging on the telephone.”