A recent survey suggests customers remain wholly unimpressed by businesses attributing long call waiting times to demand created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Eighty-five per cent of 1,000 UK survey participants who were questioned independently for outsourced comms company Moneypenny, believe businesses are blaming long call and live chat wait times on the new coronavirus - even a year into the pandemic.
On the question of how long they have to wait on average for calls or live chat requests to be answered, 18 per cent indicated between one and five minutes, 23 per cent between five and ten minutes, 6 per cent between 45 minutes and an hour, with 19 per cent stating they frequently give up on waiting altogether.
Whilst 55 per cent of people surveyed believe the pandemic is responsible for some phone delays, notable variations recorded for different market sectors, geographical regions, and depending on the the age of callers.
Moneypenny's Group CEO, Joanna Swash, comments: "Saying that unprecedented demand due to Covid is the reason for long wait times is the same as telling customers they are not important – and our data shows that customers recognise this too. Meeting demand is imperative to business survival, now more than ever.
"It’s interesting that legal and property companies were least likely to be mentioned for poor answering times and we know from our clients in these sectors that they prioritise good customer service.
However, the survey shows that the pandemic is being used as a scapegoat for poor customer care.
"Even with reduced staff through redundancies and furloughing, there are so many cost effective solutions available to ensure customer calls and live chat can continue, it’s not good enough for companies to reduce service levels an expect customers to be happy. As businesses open up there is a real danger that customers will vote with their feet and move to a competitor if poor service levels continue."
Download an infografic of the results from the downloads section on this page.
