UK Utilities Providers Poor on "Contactability"
These findings - the result of research conducted across a number of sectors including retail banks, hotels and supermarkets - are particularly astonishing in today's connected world, where reputations are made and lost on internet reviews and competition across channels is increasingly fierce.
The research commissioned by Yonder Digital Group canvassed 2,000 UK consumers, asking whether they felt that companies in a range of sectors were easy to get in touch with and efficient at getting queries resolved rapidly and effectively. Today's consumers are in fact increasingly accustomed to swift query response, across multiple channels, but the research results show that many sectors are failing to meet these taxing demands.
Though utility companies were not the worst culprits, the results leave much to be desired with a fifth (19%) of consumers surveyed scoring the sector as 'poor' for ease of contact and a third (32%) 'basic'. It is becoming increasingly easier to switch providers, and previous Yonder research shows that 81% of consumers simply take their business elsewhere if their queries aren't answered quickly and effectively by a company, making it highly risky for utilities companies to continue overlooking their levels of 'contactability'.
|
SECTOR |
Ease of Contact standard |
|||
|
Excellent |
Good |
Basic |
Poor |
|
|
Online-only retailers |
25% |
33% |
28% |
15% |
|
Banks |
24% |
34% |
28% |
15% |
|
Hotels |
23% |
37% |
31% |
10% |
|
Supermarkets |
19% |
34% |
33% |
13% |
|
Mobile phone companies |
17% |
33% |
33% |
17% |
|
Utility companies |
17% |
33% |
32% |
19% |
|
Internet providers |
16% |
31% |
34% |
19% |
|
Insurance companies |
16% |
32% |
37% |
16% |
|
DIY stores |
13% |
29% |
42% |
16% |
|
Fashion shops |
12% |
29% |
41% |
19% |
|
Car brands |
11% |
24% |
46% |
19% |
|
Delivery firms |
10% |
27% |
39% |
24% |
|
Airlines |
10% |
26% |
41% |
23% |
Chris Robinson, Yonder Digital Group CEO, comments, "Customers have individual preferences for contacting companies, which is why businesses lose out when they don't offer a range of touch points. At crucial moments in the journey to purchase, many customers will look for a live agent, particularly for urgent or non-standard queries.
"Businesses that fail to provide support at these critical stages risk losing customers to competitors with superior support services. As the results show, a large proportion of companies are still falling well below the mark, suggesting there is a long way to go for UK industries to catch up with modern expectations."
