The Customer Care Alliance is a consortium of companies in the customer care measurement and management industry that regularly surveys the impact of customer care. Three national studies have been conducted in the UK since 2004 with the last, representing the views of nearly 8,000 consumers being published last year. This study highlighted that 83% of consumers had experienced at least one problem with the products and services they consumed over the past 12 months.
The top five industry sectors for problem experience were utility companies, air travel, banking, cable or satellite TV and internet service providers and the three most serious issues were “product or service did not meet expectations”, “unsatisfactory customer service” and “poor product or service quality”.
Here is a quick overview of some of the findings:
- 72% were extremely or very upset over their problem
- 85% with a serious problem complained to the organisation responsible
- 52% shared their experience with a friend or colleague
- On average 9.6 people were told of a negative experience
- It took an average of 4.9 contacts to get their problem resolved
- Only 14% of problems were resolved during the first contact
- On average it took 8 to 14 days for a problem to be resolved
- Only 8% who complained were completely satisfied with the outcome
- Two-thirds felt they had been treated unfairly
- 48% wanted an apology but only 24% got one
An overview of the 2008 UK Customer Care study can be downloaded from www.surveylab.co.uk/resources.asp.
So, to sum up, UK consumers are far from happy with the way their suppliers handle their problems. Just thinking about those repeat contacts alone this cannot be a very efficient way to manage customers’ problems. Coming soon – the impact of the Offshore Call Centre!
