Daily Research News Online no. 1959 - Anger and Frustration at Call Centres

Anger and Frustration at Call Centres

October 28 2002

Latest research from Mintel finds call centres in the UK are dramatically failing in terms of meeting customer service expectations. Exclusive research questioning 2,020 adults finds just 5% of consumers having never experienced a problem with a call centre. A further 5% of adults do not use call centres.

By far the biggest consumer complaint when telephoning a call centre is the time spent waiting on hold, with some 60% of adults frustrated about having to hang on for long periods of time before someone answers their call. It is also clear that many callers do not share the same musical tastes as call centre managers, half of adults claim that the music played while they wait on hold annoys them.

Callers are also clearly frustrated with various aspects of service relating to automated phone systems, also known as iVR (interactive voice response) systems. The biggest nuisance is where the synthetic voice does not provide an appropriate option to properly direct the call (at 44%). Over one third of consumers dislike the synthetic or automated voice.

Mintel's research suggests that consumers feel that menu options are often read out too slowly. Furthermore, 30% of callers get quickly frustrated where the iVR system routes the call through seemingly endless menus of options. 'Mintel believes that one solution would be to have a live operator quickly directing calls to appropriate queues. While this would add extra staff costs, it would likely be well received by customers who may feel that they were receiving a more personal service' comments Brett Afshar, Financial Services Consultant.

Having navigated the call centre menu system, in busy call centres it can be common for customers to have to wait on hold for upwards of 15 minutes before being connected to a live customer service agent. For many consumers, extended time waiting on hold can lead them to simply abandon the call, indeed, almost a third of callers claim to have hung up while being left in the queue. Those aged between 25 and 34 are the least tolerant towards call centres with around 35% abandoning calls, by contrast, just 25% of those aged 65 and over abandon calls.

There are around 4,500 call centres (with at least 20 seats) in the UK. Financial services providers represent some 33% of call centre sites and employ in the region of 110,000 agents.

Looking specifically at satisfaction towards phone banking, among users of telephone banking services, the chief frustration remains that of waiting on hold to speak to a customer services representative (43%). However, the frustration associated with having to wait on hold when using a telephone banking service is considerably lower than that of waiting on hold when telephoning call centres in general (60%). Banks, recognising that callers do not like waiting on hold, have been active in rolling out self-service technologies. 'Despite the fact that most banks provide such services, it is clear that many consumers still prefer to hold and speak to a live customer services agent. Mintel believes that banks need to invest more time and effort in educating customers to use the self-service features' comments Brett Afshar.

Encouragingly, many telephone bankers have few complaints with phone-based finance. Some 39% of telephone bankers claim to never have had problems with a financial services call centre, this equates to 2.7 million adults in the UK. Interestingly, women tend to be more satisfied with the service than men.

Far from disappearing, the role of the branch is still extremely strong with some 76% of current account holders having used counter services in the last three months. The fact that only one in four customers are happy to solely use other distribution channels (i.e. telephone, Internet etc) for all of their banking needs highlights the importance of the branch to the banking offering. Some 54% of phone bankers (amounting to 7 million adults) agree that they miss the individual services that dealing face-to-face offers.

One problem the industry faces is that bank branches are still used for too many low-value/high-volume transaction by customers. Banks and building societies have been making greater use of branch ATMs, kiosks and telephone technologies in an attempt to reduce the number of counter visitors. However, while customers are adopting new channels, they have largely failed to relinquish their use of the old ones such as branches; accordingly consumers have become major multichannel users, something that has raised distribution costs for banks. 'Banks need to discourage accountholders from making unnecessary branch visits to use counter services, while simultaneously encouraging them to come into the branch to find out about bank products' comments Brett Afshar. In an increasingly competitive 'direct' financial services marketplace, visits to the branch provide the bank with an extremely important customer contact opportunity. The branch tends to be a shop window for a bank's products and services and it is widely accepted that it is easier to introduce new products to customers in the branch than it is over the Internet or phone.

ATMs have proved to be a highly successful lower-cost alternative to the branch. Some 71% of current account owners have used an ATM in the last three months. Internet banking, an area where the banking industry has spent millions of pounds, is used by only 16% of current account owners.