Switch Hack

Today’s consumers demand better access to the companies from which they buy goods and services. So it’s not surprising that the communication channels between consumers and brands have a far more important role in determining customer satisfaction and loyalty than they ever have had before.

With the emergence of the commercial aspects of the Web over the past ten years, touch points between companies and customers have come to include corporate websites and email as well as the telephone.

Research between 1999 and 2001 showed that many companies were slow to respond to electronic customer enquiries, with half of all businesses taking more than five days to respond – if indeed they responded at all.

This pattern has not improved in recent years. 78 per cent of British consumers report that they have been disappointed by a slow response to customer service email enquiries, and the average consumer is only willing to wait 24 hours for a reply. Customer expectations regarding their ability to reach suppliers have meant that communication channel management has become a far more important focus in CRM.

Consequently, communication problems have become a more central factor in explaining customer disloyalty, especially if part of larger failures to meet customer expectations. Unresponsiveness, for example, has been identified as a key indicator of ‘service encounter failures’ in customer service switching studies.

In light of the importance of electronic correspondence between businesses and customers in CRM and our understanding of customer loyalty/disloyalty, The Listening Company commissioned research to uncover current consumer perceptions and experiences with electronic and traditional communication with UK businesses.

1,000 participants aged 18 and over, from across the U.K were interviewed in October 2007.  TLC conducted the research  with analysis performed by Dr Alain Samson researcher at London School of Economics.

The report focuses specifically on current customer usage, attitudes and experiences with online messages and email, alongside more traditional marketing channels, such as the telephone and white mail. The results of the report provide information about customer communication preferences, how well companies are able to meet customer expectations, and proposes the implications for companies that do not live up to those expectations.

Summary of Findings

UK consumers prefer to contact online businesses by telephone rather than email. However, women tend to give higher priority to using the phone for both sales and service enquiries than men.

In contrast to consumer expectations, waiting times experienced for telephone enquiries is 113% higher than that desired by consumers (average of 7.2 vs 3.4 minutes). The difference is 81% for electronic messages (average of 25.8 vs 46.7 hours). Finally, traditional mail is 42% slower than wished for by consumers (average of 4.7 vs 6.7 days, with older people expecting a quicker service)

While consumers find it very easy to locate email information on company Web sites, three out of ten people find it difficult to find telephone numbers or mailing addresses on the Internet.

63% of UK consumers say that they have made a purchasing decision on the basis of inadequate response times for either telephone, email or mail queries. Looking at separate communication channels, the figure is particularly high for telephone communication (53%), but significantly lower for both mail and email (about 38% each).

Consumers with higher demands about email response times have not based significantly more negative purchasing decisions on speed of response, indicating that the effect of slow email responses on consumer behaviour is pervasive. For telephone enquiries, on the other hand, consumers with greater patience (i.e. expecting to wait longer) are 12% less likely to have made a negative purchasing decision due to a long wait or lack of response.

British consumers perceive personal information as being significantly more secure when given on the telephone (58.1%) than either on the internet (50.7%) or through the mail (51.1%).

Click here to download the full report

Listening is the most important facet of good communication

Isn’t it odd then that most people prefer to talk rather than listen? The probable reason is that listening is a far more difficult skill than talking. But listening is such a pivotal skill in all walks of life, at work and at home. So many issues in the home between partners and within families can be put down to parties not really listening to each other.

Listening is, of course, not just about hearing, but about committing the effort to try understanding what people want.

A good listener works very hard to truly understand what is meant by the words that are spoken. Active listening can be difficult; it requires undivided attention and concentration something many people don’t think they have time for.

So much success is dependent on the ability to be a good listener and yet there is so little advice on how to do it well.

When you think how many consultants and advisors are out there promising positive transformation, it is quite disappointing that they don’t offer training on how to listen properly first as this would be a huge benefit to both individuals and organisations.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed the latest corporate fashion is the environment.

I was recently asked to approve the company’s (The Listening Company’s) corporate environmental policy.

This got me thinking.

There are construction companies, mining companies, logging companies and automotive companies. Even with the very best intentions these organisations cannot help but have a negative impact on the environment.

I understand why companies like these want to make reassuring sounds to make consumers feel better about consuming. But, the awful truth is that the only way we can make a long-standing positive difference to the environment is by consuming less.

This flies in the face of commerce which is all about selling more stuff to more people.

The Listening Company exists by simple virtue of its ability to reduce the amount of human and mechanical exertion required to perform routine and complex commercial transactions for other businesses.

So, I would argue that by their very nature call centres reduce the impact business makes on the environment.

However, call centres employ a lot of people and tend to be in out of town locations. This can mean lots of travelling for lots of people!

It makes sense to me that call centres should be located in popular conurbations to reduce the need for commuting. The Listening Company is based in Richmond in Surrey and Portsmouth in Hampshire. We are never more than 200 yards from a Tube or Bus station so it’s easy for staff to get to us using public transport. What’s more - our bike racks are stacked and our car parks are tiny!

I’ve been thinking about the power thing which is more difficult because as we expand our business we will invariably be using more power – although that should mean more efficiency for another organisation.

We’ll try a few initiatives

Lights out until they are needed
Company flask service
Recyclable waste collection
Etc etc

I’ll report back…