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Customer Service Benchmark

Sample results

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Service is now everything. In today’s marketplace where things are becoming increasingly competitive and profit margins are being more and more squeezed, great customer service is the only way to set a brand apart from the rest of the competition.

The growing number of customer communication channels means that your customers now have a range of ways that they can contact you. Whether picking up the phone, sending a tweet or talking to your brand representatives face to face, customers expect an exceptional level of customer service no matter what touch point they are using.

With this in mind, eDigitalResearch have taken their years of benchmarking experience and applied it to the very first Customer Service Benchmark, assessing the current levels of satisfaction across customer communication channels and investigating areas for improvements.

A world where service is everything

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Took a definitive list of existing customer service touch points

Asked 2000 nationally representative consumers to rate their recent experiences across different touch points and about their customer service expectations.

Analysed results to produce a definitive customer service league table by touch point to help identify areas for development

What did we do

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Live chat currently has the highest satisfaction levels. Whilst currently, there are only a smaller number of customers using this method (just 24% said they have used live chat in the past year), those that have are predominantly satisfied with their experience suggesting that use of the channel is likely to grow.Phone and SMS are currently the lowest rated customer service touch points. Analysis shows that premium rate numbers, automated answering systems and long waiting times are the main sources of frustration for phone users.Unsurprisingly, email and phone are the most frequent ways to make contact.Social media is mainly utilised when for giving positive feedback, rather than to make a complaint.Almost half (43%) will pick up a phone to make a general enquiry, suggesting that they are looking for an answer to their question there and then.When making a complaint, almost half (43%) prefer to use more direct channels, such as phone and face to face, rather than less personal digital touch points.Consumers expect companies to offer them a variety of different contact methods, allowing them to choose the most appropriate for their needs.It appears that when contacting brands in various sectors, consumers appear to favour the same or similar channels to how they usually interact with a brand.

Key Findings

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Overall satisfaction

• Live chat has the highest satisfaction level of all customer service channels (73%).• Emerging customer service channels, such as live chat and in-app contact, are rated higher than more

traditional channels, such as phone and post. Whilst the number of consumers using emerging channels may not have reached the same heights as the number of consumers picking up the phone to contact a brand, the high satisfaction rates suggest that users will return to these newer customer service channels again in the future.

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Customer Experience Management

Actively monitoring Voice of the Customer feedback can help to relieve pressure on customer service teams and proactively manage the situation when things do occasionally go wrong

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Steve Brockway, Director of Research (UK)steve.brockway@edigitalresearch.comLiana Vickery, Marketing Managerliana.vickery@edigitalresearch.com

If you would like to monitor your customer service experience, please contact our Business Development team by emailing lynda.baker@edigitalresearch.com.

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