Telecoms Providers Top Customer Complaints League

A new consumer experience study of 2,800 British consumers conducted by YouGov and commissioned by RightNow Technologies reveals the general public's growing intolerance of poor customer experiences provided by organisations in Britain. Sixty-nine percent of adults polled had complained to a company and more than three-quarters (79%) of these indicated they had complained about their treatment between one and five times in the past 12 months.

From an industry perspective, telecommunications / ISP providers are the most likely type of business to make Britons complain (23%), followed by banks / insurers (19%) and utility companies (17%).

The research, the third in a series of studies by RightNow into consumer experiences, highlights the divide between consumer expectations following a complaint and the actual resolution. 60 per cent of Britons expect the problem to be fixed to their satisfaction, in fact only 27 per cent reported that this was the case.

The research also found that 34 per cent of respondents stated that the company did nothing once the complaint had been made.

It seems that poorly managed customer communication fuels complaints creating a catch-22 scenario for service departments. Calls, emails and letters are three of the top four methods for complaining, while respondents ranked the top five things they have complained about as:

• Lack of response to an email, phone call or letter
• Poor products or services
• A poor customer experience overall
• Having to repeat information over and over
• Length of time holding in a phone queue

The study clearly shows there is an opportunity for organisations to further improve consumer experiences by reviewing and reorganising how complaints are dealt with; a worthwhile undertaking as past research has shown poor customer experiences to have a monetary impact on British businesses as Britons will remove their custom forever on the basis of a poor experience.

"Although the British have a reputation for complaining about the inclement weather, in reality, the majority of us don't enjoy making a complaint and it usually takes something relatively significant to drive us to that point," said Gladena McMahon, Accredited Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist, British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP). "However, once at that point we do expect empathy and action. It's like most things in life, when we have a problem we seek a 'listening ear' - companies need to be mindful of this and act accordingly." "

Posted to the site on 19th April 2007