Ten years on, and still not listening

A study conducted into the £66 billion global contact centre industry has revealed that customers are waiting longer than they were ten years ago to have their phone calls answered by contact centre agents.

Dimension Data’s Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report has compared industry data from the first Report in 1997 to data from this year’s Report. It shows that over the last ten years customer service levels have fallen significantly.

The average time to answer a call has risen from 23 to 39 seconds, the percentage of calls answered within 10 seconds has fallen from 72 per cent to 63.5 per cent, and the average time taken to respond to a message left by customers has risen from 11 to a staggering 20 hours.

Impatient customers
The image of the industry has not been helped by the mounting pressure on businesses to deliver customer service to increasingly expectant and time-poor customers. According to the Report, in 1997 the average caller waited 53 seconds before abandoning their call, but now 45 seconds is the norm. Furthermore, calls that are abandoned prior to the caller being connected with an agent have more than doubled in the last ten years, from 6 per cent in 1997 to the current level of 13.6 per cent.

Alex George, Dimension Data spokesperson for the Benchmarking Report, said: “The increase in demand coupled with the need to contain costs has put significant pressure on contact centres – and is not always matched by the investment or the resources required to meet expectations.

“Over the last ten years, the level of attention placed upon long term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies or initiatives to enhance customer value has decreased. This is understandable, as more immediate or urgent concerns have monopolised efforts and focus, such as having sufficient capacity and capability in place to meet today’s service demands. It’s difficult to build for a better tomorrow if today is not in order.”

Not all bad news
The Report also shows that exciting developments in the technology arena are helping to improve the customer experience. Ten years ago, 90 per cent of all inbound contact centre transactions were conducted by a human agent. Today, with the significant developments in self service web- or voice-based technology, over 30 per cent of all transactions are handled without human agent involvement.

George continued: “The contact centre industry has reached the time when human agents alone can no longer manage customer demand and call volumes. As a result we are seeing a significant shift towards self-service technology – such as voice recognition or online solutions – which can deal with customer enquiries faster and more cost-effectively.

“So while at first glance these findings show a decline in customer service since 1997, one of the key reasons that customers are waiting longer to have their calls answered is because agents are now working on the more complex and difficult customer enquiries. Gone are the days when agents just dealt with simple address changes and meter readings. A simple transaction can now be dealt with using new technology, so those waiting to speak to a more highly skilled agent to handle their complex enquiry are typically going to have to wait longer.”

The Report has been published annually over the past ten years. This year’s Report involved 300 contact centres in 36 countries across five continents.