Customers want companies to speed up complaint resolution and responses: new study
A new study has shown that customers who contact a company to make a complaint are often left unsatisfied due to the length of time it takes to deal with their issue.
The study by eDigitalResearch found that companies are, on average, taking longer to reply to those customers who contact them to make a complaint compared to those that send positive feedback.
Of those consumers surveyed who had recently made a complaint, under half (44%) said that they heard back from the company within 24 hours, while 12% said that it took over a week for the company to contact them.
In comparison, 68% of consumers heard back from a company within 24 hours when providing positive feedback. However, 17% of those giving positive feedback heard nothing back from the company, despite respondents indicating that they still expected a response to acknowledge their contact.
Never Miss a Retail Update!When asked about their last contact with a company, over half (58%) of those surveyed said that they used email to get in touch with a brand or business, whilst around one third (31%) opted to call the company direct. The telephone was found to be the most popular channel to contact a brand about a complaint due to its immediacy.
Derek Eccleston, commercial director at eDigitalResearch, said: “If a person is picking up the phone or sending off an email to complain, then chances are that they’re an unhappy customer. Their contact with a brand is a prime opportunity to impress these unhappy customers and connect them back into the business but these results suggest that, more often than not, brands are passing this opportunity by.”
Complainers were also more likely to feel that they had to put in more effort than they expected to contact a company. When asked about how the process of their last contact with a company left them feeling, almost half (42%) of those with a complaint said that they felt worse after contact – even 10% of those that provided positive feedback said they had a poorer view of the company after getting in touch.
Eccleston added: “Contacting a brand for whatever reason should be as seamless and pain-free as possible. Whether you call a company, email or contact them on social media, a customer’s contact experience should remain the same. As the number of ways that we can communicate with each other and brands continues to grow, it is important that the right measures are put into place to ensure that customers receive the same treatment no matter what contact channel they use or what they are contacting about.
“Using initiatives such as real time customer feedback to gain an immediate insight into customer experiences ensures that customer service staff handle contact fairly and efficiently.”
