LONDON, July 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
Service issues costing consumers
nearly £15 billion a year
As a result of poor customer service, over two-thirds (69%) of
Brits have acted on their frustration when dealing with a company,
with nearly half (46%) demanding to speak to a supervisor and over
a third (34%) either cancelling their service or stopping using a
brand altogether. These are the findings from an online survey
conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of ClickSoftware (NasdaqGS:
CKSW) in May 2014 of over 2,000 UK
adults.
(Photo:
http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140715/697059 )
UK Service Industry Consumer Frustration Index
The global report by ClickSoftware, which looks at the
frustrations consumers face when dealing with companies, found
utility companies came top in the league with nearly a third (32%)
of people naming them the most frustrating industry to deal with
for service issues. In a year where energy companies have been
blighted by billing problems, over half (52%) of Brits who find
utility companies among the two most frustrating, spent over an
hour trying to resolve an issue, such as dealing with a billing
problem or loss of power, with 4.3 hours the average time people
had to wait.
Communication service providers came a close second with over a
quarter (29%) of people fed up with the time they wasted, followed
by Central Government (18%) and banking (15%), third and fourth
respectively.
It's not just businesses losing money from bad customer service,
UK workers are having to take time off to attend to matters during
their working hours to resolve issues. The study revealed a total
loss of nearly £15 billion a year, and an individual loss of almost
£500 per person*.
And despite the famous British stiff upper lip, one in 10 (13%)
have been driven so crazy by poor service they have admitted to
losing their cool and yelling at a service representative.
Meanwhile others have gone to extreme lengths to get better or
quicker service, including lying (9%), crying to the service
representative (real or fake tears) (4%) or even begging (3%).
"This is a timely reminder for businesses that customer service
is still one of the biggest factors in attracting and retaining
customers," said Robert Williams,
Vice President of UK & Ireland
of ClickSoftware. "Bad customer service is costing business up to a
third of their revenue, and the knock on effect is that people are
having to take precious holiday time just to deal with things that
could and should be sorted much more easily. The good news is that
by having accurate planning and information sharing procedures in
place it's never been easier to address customer concerns and
provide an exceptional experience in a cost-effective way."
"Ultimately, satisfied customers help drive retention and
profitability for service organisations. Our research found those
that reached a 90%+ customer satisfaction rate achieved an annual
6.1% growth in service revenue, 3.7% growth in overall revenue, and
an 89% level of customer retention," said Aly Pinder, Senior Research Analyst, Service
Management, Aberdeen Group[1]. "Today
solutions exist to alleviate consumer frustration. Considering the
high cost to the bottom line, there is no justification for
under-performance. Service organisations of all sizes should
consider adopting automated tools to improve forecasting, planning
and invest in mobile tools to provide field workers better access
to information and the ability to communicate in real-time."
Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within Great Britain between
May 13 and 21, 2014 among 2,053 adults aged 18 and older by
Harris Poll on behalf of ClickSoftware via its Global omnibus
product. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region
and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them
into line with their actual proportions in the population.
Propensity score weighting was used to adjust for respondents'
propensity to be online. For complete survey methodology, including
weighting variables, please contact clicksoftware@mslgroup.com.
*Based on the average UK national hourly wage of £12.92 (UK
workers average hour rate is £13.60 for men and £12.24 for women)
for a typical 37.5 hour work week, that's an average £484.50 that
people lose waiting instead of working. Multiply that by 30.43
million employed Brits and the true cost of frustrated wait time
experienced by the UK population emerges at £14.7 billion.
About ClickSoftware
ClickSoftware (NasdaqGS: CKSW) is the leading provider of automated
mobile workforce management and service optimisation solutions for
the enterprise, both for mobile and in-house resources. As pioneers
of the "Service chain optimisation" concept, our solutions provide
organisations with end-to-end visibility and control of the entire
service management chain by optimising forecasting, planning, shift
and task scheduling, mobility and real-time management of resource
and customer communication.
Available via the cloud or on-premise, our products incorporate
best business practices and advanced decision-making algorithms to
manage service operations more efficiently, in a scalable,
integrated manner. Our solutions have become the backbone for many
leading organisations worldwide by addressing the fundamental
question of job fulfillment: Who does What, for Whom, With what,
Where and When.
ClickSoftware is the premier choice for delivering superb business
performance to service sector organisations of all sizes. The
company is headquartered in the United
States and Israel, with
offices across Europe,
Latin America and Asia Pacific. For more information, please
visit http://www.clicksoftware.com. Follow us on Twitter.
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1. Aberdeen Group, "Secrets to Optimize Field Service for Better
Customer Experiences" September
2013
Kristin Amico
ClickSoftware
+1-781-272-5903 ext. 2364
kristin.amico@clicksoftware.com
James Gilheany/Emma Ralphson
Red Consultancy
+44-207-025-6527
clicksoftware@redconsultancy.com