What does customer service cost?
Posted by Jacqui Maxwell, 27 November 2009 11:21:00
I read an interesting article online recently which suggested that one in four people has left a financial services company or utility provider in the past year as a result of poor customer service. Whilst that may come as no surprise, as we wouldn't expect anyone to put up with poor service, it was more the numbers and the cost which caught my attention.
We know that almost everyone in the UK needs gas, electricity and water. We also know that the majority have bank accounts, mortgages and credit cards. So given the huge numbers of customers that use these industries, the report estimated the cost in lost revenue of one in every four customers to be over £2 Billion. But the cost doesn't end there. When a customer leaves it's also costly for another company to gain their business, as most companies need to recover the marketing expenses of actually gaining a customer. Poor customer service clearly has a significant impact on our business and the economy as a whole.
The report included an online poll of consumers to establish what they felt was particularly poor customer service. It found that hard to navigate self-service systems, long call waiting times and constantly having to repeat themselves were high on customers' lists. Most people seemed quite happy with live agents and email, but weren't so keen on voice self-service and mobile/text services. Over 80% of people interviewed also thought that their providers could be more pro-active to improve their experience or to offer help during self-service transactions.
The article got me thinking. We pride ourselves on the level of customer service we provide and we know this is recognised by various awards that we win each year, but is this enough?
When it's clear that customer expectations are rising, are we far enough ahead of the game to meet their expectations? It's obviously no longer enough for businesses to keep doing what they've always done in the past.
We encourage innovation within our group, as well as offering the best service possible to all our customers. With this in mind, I'd be interested to know if you agree with the report's findings and to know what 'customer service' means to you.