Genesys Telecommunications comment on Citizens Advice new report on ‘Hanging on the Telephone’

- comments from Mark Turner, Vice President for UK and Ireland, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories

Hang on – has the Citizens Advice report really told us anything new?

Once again the contact centre industry has come under attack. First it was the BBC with its ‘Brassed-Off Britain’ programme, and now Citizens Advice is leaping on to the ‘call centres are terrible’ bandwagon with its new ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ report.

In this latest report we are told how discontent people are with call centres, and yet when it comes to the meat of the report we can only find rather vague assertions to support the argument. Apparently ‘97 per cent of people surveyed found at least one aspect of using a call centre annoying’ – but that’s not really telling us much – I’m sure 97 per cent of people, when questioned, would find one aspect of everything annoying!

Don’t get me wrong – the Citizens Advice report does raise important issues. It tells us that customers get frustrated, it tells us that customers don’t like to be kept waiting, and it tells us that customers like to have their problems solved when they get in touch with an organisation through its call centre.

Focus on Customer Frustration
At Genesys we take these issues very seriously. We recently conducted research into Customer Frustration, and ended up getting more than 2,000 responses to our questions. What was interesting was that in responses from places as far afield as Tokyo, New York and London, the customer service problems that users complained about were all the same – Customer Frustration is clearly universal!

It’s worthwhile looking in detail at the results of our Customer Frustration poll, as we believe it gets to the heart of the contact centre issue – and also explains why we feel it’s right that organisations should value their contact centres.
  • 85 per cent of the 2,000 plus consumers surveyed said they would stop using a company’s product based on a bad call centre experience
  • Only 32 per cent of consumers will consider repurchasing a product from a company with poor customer service (that’s against the 78 per cent repurchase rate from customers who deal with companies where there have been no customer service problems)
  • While 89 per cent of consumers will consider repurchasing from a company with previous faulty products – providing the call centre can solve their problems
In our survey – like the Citizens Advice report – we found that 84 per cent of consumers have had a negative call centre experience. But we’re also aware that most people remember events that go wrong more clearly than the things that go right. What’s clear is it’s not necessarily the call centre that’s the problem, it’s what’s going on inside. Consumers don’t like getting bad service, they certainly don’t feel inclined to buy again from organisations that treat them badly – but where an organisation has made a real effort to solve their problem, their loyalty can actually increase.

Link between Customer Service and Business Success
Our survey showed again that there’s a clear link between customer service and business success. That’s maybe not rocket science, but it’s surprising how many organisations seem to forget! Giving customers what they want so they’ll spend more money with your company seems to make sense. We’re finding that the businesses that are getting it right in their contact centres typically follow three simple rules – they deliver fast answers, they provide first call resolution all the time, and they provide their customers with a personalised service.

At Genesys we’ve come up with some basic tips that we believe can help both consumers and businesses start to raise some of the important customer service issues raised again by the Citizens Advice report. Not everyone or every business will get them all right all the time, but we hope they might help when it comes to Hanging on the Telephone.

10 things businesses should do to keep customers from voting with their feet!
  • Staff your contact centre to operate at maximum efficiency during peak hours
  • Carry out regular customer satisfaction surveys – then read the results and act on them
  • Make sure your customers know how long they’ll have to wait – people don’t mind waiting a few minutes if they know their enquiry will be solved
  • Strive for first call resolution in all matters
  • Try and deploy ‘skills-based routing’ – this is all about getting consumers through to the right agent, and then using your customer information to help manage problems
  • Always offer easy access to a live agent – make sure your self-service options blend seamlessly with live agents – that way consumers can take advantage of the best of both worlds
  • Don’t forget other contact channels – answer all e-mails within 24 hours or less
  • Develop menu options that address the most common service needs
  • Recognise your call centre agents’ accomplishments – time and again the best run call centres turn out to be the ones that take time to recognise their best customer service agents with awards and prizes
  • Listen to the reasons your agents give when they leave – maybe your call centre isn’t a very pleasant place to work, or perhaps the work is boring - unhappy and frustrated agents will always deliver poor customer service
About Genesys:
Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., a subsidiary of Alcatel, is 100 per cent focused on software for call centres. Genesys recognises that better interactions drive better business and build company reputations. Customer service solutions from Genesys deliver on this promise for Global 2000 enterprises, government organisations and telecommunications service providers across 80 countries, directing more than 100 million customer interactions every day. Sophisticated routing and reporting across voice, e-mail and web channels ensure that customers are quickly connected to the best available resource – the first time. Genesys offers solutions for customer service, help desks, order desks, collections, outbound telesales and service, and workforce management. Visit www.genesyslabs.com for more information.

Media Contact:
Paul Roberts, Genesys, 0118 9747144, proberts@genesyslab.co.uk