Technical issues test contact centre efficiency

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Resolving technical issues causes the most anxiety for consumers calling contact centres, according to a survey released today.

While consumers said they were most inconvenienced by being kept on hold, the UK Contact Centre Operational Review conducted by ICM Research revealed that resolving issues with internet access or lost satellite TV signal was named by a third of consumers as their biggest contact centre bugbear.

Resolving a gas bill and booking a holiday were the next most likely things that consumers were willing to stay on the phone for, regardless of how long the call took to resolve, with a response rate of 28 per cent and 27 per cent respectively. But only 18 per cent were as willing to wait to purchase car insurance.

Lee Cottle, chief operating officer at survey sponsors and speech self-service IT provider Vicorp, said: "Call centres frequently receive bad publicity and, more often than not, it revolves around how long consumers are left on hold before their queries are resolved."

But results of the review, analysed by contact centre research firm Contact Babel, found a large disparity between the industry average, 30-second wait to speak to a contact centre agent and the perceptions of the 1,000 UK adults surveyed, who said they were often kept on hold for more than 11 minutes.

This view was reinforced by the majority of respondents (61 per cent) citing their biggest dislike about contact centres was being kept waiting in call centre queuing systems. Repetitive announcements and having to restate account information were ranked equal second, being cited by nearly half of those questioned.

The research also highlighted that patience appears to decline significantly with age. It found 18 to 24 year olds were the most tolerant of being kept on hold, being prepared to wait 16 minutes in a call centre queue. The next group, 25 to 34 year olds, were prepared to wait up to 13 minutes, while those aged 65 and over were only willing to wait for nine minutes.

Cottle said: "As the call centre is often the first point of contact between an organisation and its customers, every effort needs to be made to improve the experience for both customers and staff."

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