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Customers
Tell Businesses: Deliver Quality Service—or Else
A national survey of consumers conducted by Greenfield Online on
behalf of Aspect Communications Corporation, the leading provider
of business communications solutions that help companies improve
customer satisfaction, reduce operating costs, gather market intelligence
and increase revenue, shows that consumers are so adamant about
the quality of service they receive over the telephone that 59%
would stop doing business with a company that delivered unsatisfactory
service, and they wouldn’t stop there:
- 53% of them would make a point of telling friends and family
members not to do business with the company,
- 48% of them would take the time to complain to a company representative
and
- a smaller, but still significant 16% would actually contact consumer
advocacy groups to file a complaint.
The survey also shows, however, that the benefits of providing excellent
over-the-phone service are clear.
- An overwhelming majority of consumers—82%—would recommend
a business to family and friends after having received good service,
and
- 78% would become repeat customers based on their pleasing service
quality experiences.
Customers also have clear ideas on how businesses can improve service:
50% of customers would be more satisfied if they didn’t get
passed from service representative to service representative before
they were able to resolve an issue. Additionally, less time spent
waiting for service would improve the satisfaction level of 66%
percent of customers.
The survey also illustrates consumers’ clear preference for
performing some tasks themselves instead of talking to a service
representative:
- 80% of customers would rather use a phone-based self-service
system to check their account balances,
- 61% prefer using self-service to track shipments and
- 58% prefer being able to check the status of an order themselves.
The survey shows that businesses have room for improvement when
it comes to phone-based service. Almost a quarter of those consumers
surveyed—24%—said they were dissatisfied with the service
they receive over the phone, with 5 percent calling themselves “very
dissatisfied.” The majority—52%—said they were
only “somewhat satisfied.”
“These results indicate that companies can expect their fortunes
to rise and fall based on the quality of customer interactions,”
said David Puglia, Aspect’s senior vice president of global
marketing. “Aspect provides the solutions that let businesses
offer cost-effective, high-quality service. We know how important
service is to customers, and ultimately, service quality is a key
factor in determining a company’s success.”
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