58% of callers get through to UK’s Top 50 Call Centres in 60 seconds or less
Retail sector boasts shortest call centre queues
16th September 2008; New independent research, commissioned by fifty of the UK’s leading call centres, as part of The Top 50 Call Centre initiative, sponsored by Siemens, shows that 93% of their customers get through to the call centre on their first attempt. This figure rose to 98% in the retail sector, followed by 95% in the financial services and entertainment, leisure and travel sectors. The public sector performed least well at 87%, lagging behind the telecoms and utilities sector at 90%.
Even more impressive, a staggering 96% of customer enquiries were resolved by the initial call. The retail sector performed best in this area, achieving a 98% first call resolution rate, closely followed by the financial services and telecoms & utilities sectors at 97%. The figure fell to 92% in the Public Sector, four per cent below the entertainment, travel and leisure sector in fourth place.
The findings are taken from the largest ever mystery shopper exercise in the call centre industry, conducted by independent Market Research Company GfK NOP. Full findings will be published in October 2008. Twenty thousand calls were made to the fifty call centres who have signed up to the Top 50 Call Centre initiative, which aims to recognise good practice and raise customer service standards across the industry.
The survey showed it takes on average just 1.3 minutes for customers of the Top 50 Call Centres to get through to speak to an actual person. The figure includes time waiting to get through, as well as time spent selecting IVR or touch-tone options, before getting through to a customer service representative.
On an encouraging note, 58% of callers in the survey got through to a Customer Service Representative in less than one minute. The retail sector provided the fastest time to get through for customers, with 74% of callers getting through within 60 seconds, closely followed by the financial services sector at 60%. The telecoms and utilities sector was the lowest performing, at 52%, just ahead of the entertainment, leisure and travel and public sectors, both at 53%.
A small percentage of customers, at 5% had to wait over five minutes to get through to a call centre representative. However, interestingly, over one in four of these callers said they are extremely satisfied by their experience. This finding suggests that UK consumers can still be won over by good service, even if they have to wait in a call centre queue.
Sorry seems to be the hardest word…
The research also highlighted one area for improvement: where callers had to wait more than one minute to get through, only 27% received an apology for the delay. Retail once again recorded the highest score here at 35%, against the lowest at 20% in the Entertainment, Leisure and Travel sector
Claudia Hathway, Editor of Call Centre Focus comments: “It is great to see so many of the UK’s leading call centres get together to find out how they are performing, by asking their customers. That has to be the ultimate test for any call centre. Speed of response has long been the bugbear of UK consumers, but this research proves categorically that, in this area, many of the UK’s leading call centres are getting it right.”
Organisations who have signed up to the Top 50 Call Centre initiative include: Boots, BUPA, Cambridgeshire County Council, Comet, Co-operative Financial Services, Direct Line, DVLA, EDF Energy, Eurostar, First Direct, Holiday Extras, ING Direct, John Lewis Direct, Kent County Council, Laithwaites, LEGO, Lloyds TSB Insurance, M&S Direct, Nationwide Direct, O2 UK, P&O Ferries, Prudential, Specsavers Optical Superstores, Surrey County Council, Tesco Personal Finance, Thomas Cook, United Utilities, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Vodafone.
Notes to Editors
Research methodology
In total, 400 calls were made to each of 50 organisations – resulting in a total sample of 20,000 calls. The mystery shopping exercise is based on a comprehensive analysis of call centre service in five key areas. The report will be published in October 2008.
Calls were split across customer and non-customer assessor profiles and across simple and more complex enquiries. Assessors were profiled as closely as possible to the organisation they were calling and used their real background, contact details to maximise their credibility. Where appropriate to the scenario in question, they had policy numbers; customer reference numbers etc. to hand in case they were asked for these to resolve their enquiry.
Scenarios were constructed so as to be comparable across all organisations and sectors involved. Examples are shown below:
Entertainment, Leisure & Travel
Flight, holiday and accommodation quotes and enquiries, fares and schedules, facilities for children / disabled customers / elderly customers, parking, changing dates,
Financial Services & Insurance
Requests for balances / information on recent transactions / standing orders, product / service enquiries, excess charges, insurance quotes (including non-standard risk profiles), checking policy details, changing policy details
Public Sector
Enquiries about services (such as libraries, recycling, social housing), costs of services, appointment booking, enquiries about benefits / taxes
Retail & Distribution
Store card enquiries, opening times, appointment booking, enquiries about refund processes, catalogue ordering, product detail enquiries
Telecoms & Utilities
Enquiries about product packages / add-ons, price objections, payment and balance enquiries
Trained mystery shoppers were used for the calling and restrictions were placed on the number of calls made by individual assessors. On the ‘customer’ scenarios and those where contact details may be requested, shoppers were limited to no more than 1 call per organisation.
Calls were made between May and August 2008.
About Call Centre Focus
Call Centre Focus is the UK’s leading monthly magazine covering all aspects of the call centre industry and customer service in general. Articles give practical advice and tips on how to ensure successful and effective customer contact and the regularly updated website (www.callcentre.co.uk) ensures that readers are kept abreast of the very latest market news. In short, it is a one-stop-shop for call centre professionals everywhere.
About Top 50 Call Centres
The Top 50 Call Centre initiative is a benchmarking exercise, in partnership with GfK NOP, a leading independent market research organisation, and sponsored by Siemens, that aims to help call centres find out how the general public thinks they are performing through over 20,000 mystery shopping calls, half of these from current customers of each independent call centre.
Calls will be rated for customer service criteria identified by the customers themselves including timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalisation. The calls will reflect different enquiry types from simple requests to more complex enquiries, truly reflecting the range of calls the call centre receives. They will take place at different times of day, during peak and non peak periods, including weekends.
About Siemens Enterprise Communications
Siemens Enterprise Communications is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Unified Communications technologies. The company’s unique Open Communications approach to providing software, solutions and services for enterprises of all sizes enables business processes to be more productive, faster and more secure – with any device, network or information technology infrastructure.
Media contacts
For more information please contact:
Sarah-Anne Bray
Wildfire PR
T: 0208 339 4420
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Title: Don’t keep me hanging on the telephone
Re: Siemens Enterprise Communications
Date: 16/09/2008
WebitPR (www.webitpr.com) has distributed this release on behalf of Wildfire PR. Please contact Sarah-Anne Bray, on +44 (0)208 339 4420 or email Top50@wildfirepr.co.uk, if you have any questions or enquiries regarding the release.
