Dangers of Automating Telephone Service

A study of customer service experiences among US mobile phone providers shows that automated systems can work, but are often a key cause of customer frustration. Vocal Laboratories' SectorPulse report rated the highly-automated Verizon Wireless no.1, but logged many complaints about automatic systems generally.

The study compares the quality of mobile phone customer service for AT&T Wireless, Cingular, SprintPCS and Verizon Wireless, using data and call recordings from the companies' customers. In overall satisfaction Verizon Wireless was awarded an 'A' in Caller Satisfaction and scored 43, compared to Cingular with 25, Sprint PCS with 14 and AT&T Wireless with -5.

The automation rate for the four companies was 33% at Verizon Wireless, 25% at Cingular, 20% at SprintPCS and 22% at AT&T Wireless. Automated systems which were difficult to navigate were one of the common problem areas reported across all four companies, along with difficulty in connecting to an agent and long hold times - however, the Verizon figures suggest that not all automation is alike.

Verizon Wireless successfully answered customers' questions 87% of the time on the first call, while the other three companies only managed to handle between 70% and 73% of customer questions on the first call. 'Caller frustration' levels were measured as 29% at AT&T Wireless, 15% at Cingular, 17% at SprintPCS and 12% at Verizon Wireless. The average call lengths for the four companies were 7:08 minutes for SprintPCS, 6:41 minutes for AT&T Wireless, 5:32 minutes for Cingular and 4:34 minutes for Verizon Wireless.

One participant was given an estimated wait time of 20 minutes 'after getting through the automated part to get to a real person', but was actually on hold for 38 minutes. Other requests included the ability to have the option of speaking with a person up front.

'Based on our analysis of the data, Verizon Wireless came out on top in this study' says Peter U. Leppik, CEO of VocaLabs. 'The other three companies could likely see substantial operational and satisfaction improvement by emulating Verizon in this regard'.

VocaLabs uses a panel of more than 40,000 individuals. Panelists who are customers of one of the companies included in this study were asked to participate by having their calls recorded and completing a survey after the call. The Caller Satisfaction benchmark measures the customer's perception of service quality. The letter grades are based on a company's raw score as compared to all companies in the VocaLabs database, and range from A to D.

Further information including an Executive Summary is available from Jessica Ament at VocaLabs, jament@vocalabs.com

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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