Poor Customer Service Costs U.K. Businesses £15.3 Billion Per Year

Businesses in the United Kingdom lose a total of £15.3 billion each year when customers defect and abandon their purchases as a direct result of poor customer experiences. 

This is according to a new report, “The Cost of Poor Customer Service: The Economic Impact of the Customer Experience." The study was sponsored by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., in collaboration with industry analysts at Datamonitor/Ovum.

This survey also found:

• 73% of U.K. consumers ended a relationship due to a poor customer experience
• The average value of each lost relationship is £248 per year
• 39% of U.K. consumers said it is critical for companies to provide more intelligent self-service so they are not trapped in unproductive automated systems
• 83% of consumers welcome more proactive engagement if it improves their experiences
• Younger consumers are more likely to end relationships based on poor customer service than older consumers

Financial services, utilities and telecommunications firms are suffering the biggest losses because they lose substantially more customers than companies in other industries.  Nearly one fourth of consumers said they abandoned a financial services company or utility in the past year.  Even industries that were historically safe from competition, such as utilities, must now pay closer attention to the customer experience.

The survey revealed the following significant root causes of poor customer service:

• Having to repeat information
• Feeling trapped in automated self-service
• Being forced to wait too long for service
• Interacting with representatives who have no knowledge of the service history (or consumer value)
• Unable to easily switch between communication channels

Voice Self-service is the Most Challenging Communication Channel
Forty-one per cent of consumers cite voice self service as the most challenging communications channel compared to only 1 per cent who find it most satisfying.  And 39 per cent of consumers said it is critical to improve voice self-service to make it integrate more intelligently with human assisted service.

In customer service experiences where the consumer was ‘trapped’ in an automated system, consumers spent, on average, more than ten minutes trying to reach a live agent. 

Even paper-based mail, which can be a considerably slower communications channel, is preferable to poorly implemented voice self-service systems.

Courtesy – Randy Saunders