All it takes to lose a customer: one bad call centre experience

Stuart Corner
Monday, 08 December 2008 06:40

IT Industry - Strategy

Australia's Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, concerned at the rising tide of complaints about telcos' poor customer service last month launched a campaign to get them to lift their game, but Callcentre.Net's survey showing how poor customer service can lose them customers might get their attention rather better.

The TIO recorded 268,645 complaint issues in 2007/2008 , an increase of 61 percent from 2006/07 and said that customer service was now the top complaint issue – with 52,527 complaint issues recorded in 2007/08, and another 28,821 complaint issues recorded about complaint handling.

In an online survey commissioned by Avaya, Callcentres.net questioned 320 people in Australia and 309 in New Zealand who, in the two weeks prior, had cause to make use of services provided through a call centre.

The sample was not exclusive to telecommunications service providers but spanned the gamut from government, to finance, hospitality, professional services and utilities.

In Australia, almost half of those dissatisfied with the service provided in their most recent call said they had moved their business to another company or would do so within the next 12 months.  The response from New Zealanders was almost identical.

The main reason cited for dissatisfaction was failure to resolve the issue, or the process taking to long (33 percent of respondents), closely followed by being kept waiting or left on hold for two long (22 percent).  Similarly, 45 percent of those fairly or extremely satisfied with the level of service cited timely resolution of the issue as the main reason.

Carlton Taya, managing director of Avaya South Pacific said the results showed that "Getting callers through to the right agent first time to resolve a customer's issue is paramount."

And to reinforce these findings, more of those surveyed (42 percent) listed poor call centre service in their top three reasons to take their business to another company, well ahead of cheaper products and services (34 percent).