While providing exceptional service necessitates more resources, time, and money, doing so will help you stand out from the competition, maintain a positive image with new consumers, and encourage current customers to purchase from you again.
You must first understand your consumer before you can begin to plan your customer care approach. To assist you, research from Awaken Intelligence lists the UK industries with the best and worst customer service. With the insights this survey offers, you can reflect on your experiences with these industries and apply their customer care strategies to your business.
Best and Worst Customer Service by Industry
Finance and Banking had the highest degree of consumer satisfaction, followed by Consumer Goods and Entertainment & Hospitality. Consumer Goods emerges as the industry with the best customer service quality for both older and younger generations.
Respondents said utilities have the lowest degree of customer service satisfaction in their contact centres. Travel was regarded as the industry with the poorest call centre service among younger people.
Common Customer Complaints Concerning Customer Care
Long Hold Times
One of the most important call centre KPIs is average handling time (AHT). Customers want quick responses and can’t afford to spend entire afternoons glued to their phones. Consumers are likely to hang up the phone after roughly two minutes, and a good number of those customers would not call again. That implies you lose a chunk of your consumer base just by not picking up the phone quickly enough.
No First-call Resolution
Customers want their issues to be handled on the first call when they contact your customer care staff. Customers despise having to repeat their problems to your customer service representatives.
When they’re shifted to new representatives or dealing with an agent who isn’t attentive, this happens. It’s both annoying and time-consuming for consumers to have to detail their problems numerous times.
Lack of Empathy
Some clients will simply not get along with your customer care agents, regardless of their tone, attitude, or even the time of day. Some consumers believe it is due to a lack of concern when a representative fails to satisfy their demands.
This is true in some cases, but clients have greater expectations than your staff can meet in others. Regardless of the source of the problem, when your care reps fail to look invested, your company’s reputation suffers.
Low-Quality Product or Service
You may anticipate your consumer to complain if your product breaks. In some situations, the problem isn’t with the product; instead, it’s with the customer’s lack of understanding of how to utilize it.
Customers may not be a suitable fit for your product or service at other times, but they blame your firm for failing to meet their demands. Customer care agents have to know how to keep customers from going to rivals, regardless of how they arrived at a negative impression.
Preferred Channels for Customer Contact
When a quick response isn’t necessary, email is one of the best options for communication. The Awaken research showed that it is the most preferred channel for communication between businesses and customers.
A significant advantage of email is that agents may react to emails while dealing with other contact channels like emails. However, a significant drawback is the length of time it takes to receive a response. The average response time for email customer support inquiries is about 12 hours.
Live Chat
Because it delivers in-depth, personalized replies to their concerns quickly, human-powered live chat is a top-rated communication channel with younger audiences. The younger age group of 18-34 years is the most likely to have used online chat several times. Reduced hold time being the main reason for choosing live chat over phone calls.
By allowing meaningful discussions to take place conveniently, live chat helps agents establish connections with consumers as they navigate the website. It may also be a 24-hour communication channel, allowing consumers to get help anytime and anywhere.
Phone Calls
One of the most common options for customer support teams is a telephone-based contact centre. Phone calls are a customer contact channel with an established track record. They are a popular channel for businesses to adopt since customers are familiar with the procedure. It is by far the preferred contact method for those over 65 years.
Customers who make a regular phone call face the disadvantage of waiting in long queues before speaking with an adviser, which may be tiresome and inconvenient.
Social Media
These days, many companies are found on social media, making these channels an excellent communication channel for interacting with new and existing consumers early in the customer journey.
It is one of the few public consumer interaction avenues. As a result, it may serve as both a marketing tool and a reliable communication route.
Good customer service is essential to retaining old customers and creating an excellent first impression with new ones. Learning the common complaints customers have about contact centres, and their preferred channel of contact goes a long way.
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