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23/05/2008
'Hangin' On The Telephone' For UK Call Centres
A study has found that customer service levels at UK call centres have fallen in the past 10 years.
Dimension Data - the specialist IT services and solutions provider that carried out the research - found that the average time to answer the phone has increased from 23 to 38 seconds.
The 2008 Dimension Data Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report also revealed that the best centres were in the travel industry while the lower ranked centres were in technology and the media.
The study of 300 worldwide centres including 59 in the UK found that "customer service levels had dropped signifantly".
Spokesperson for Dimension Data, Alex George said that the "the increase in demand, coupled with the need to contain costs, has put significant pressure on contact centres".
The report also found that customers are abandoning their call more quickly than a decade ago if it remained unanswered.
More than a third of all calls are now dealt by automated information or messages.
Grant Sainsbury, Practise Director, Dimension Data Americas said: "Ten years ago, enterprises were focused on improving service and moving away from face-to-face interactions toward a phone experience.
"Today, the reality is that the choice of channel varies and is dependent on the type of transaction."
In 1997, human voice transactions represented over 90% of a contact centre's activity. Today, that number has fallen to slightly over 50% of total call volume.
Call duration has also lengthened, in 1999, the average call duration was approximately 187 seconds. This year's average is now 239 seconds – representing a 30% increase.
It was also found that 38% of contact centre managers polled believed that a centre's ability to resolve a query during first call "is the most important factor in service improvement".
Mr George said: "Contact centres still rely on the standard efficiency metrics. Abandon rate is the most commonly used target with 90.1% of participating centres using it as a key metric, while only 63.4% of centres use First Call Resolution as a performance target. These findings indicate a discrepancy between what customers want and what contact centres focus their costs and energy on."
Dimension Data founded in 1983, was awarded 80 industry awards in 2007.
(DS)
Dimension Data - the specialist IT services and solutions provider that carried out the research - found that the average time to answer the phone has increased from 23 to 38 seconds.
The 2008 Dimension Data Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report also revealed that the best centres were in the travel industry while the lower ranked centres were in technology and the media.
The study of 300 worldwide centres including 59 in the UK found that "customer service levels had dropped signifantly".
Spokesperson for Dimension Data, Alex George said that the "the increase in demand, coupled with the need to contain costs, has put significant pressure on contact centres".
The report also found that customers are abandoning their call more quickly than a decade ago if it remained unanswered.
More than a third of all calls are now dealt by automated information or messages.
Grant Sainsbury, Practise Director, Dimension Data Americas said: "Ten years ago, enterprises were focused on improving service and moving away from face-to-face interactions toward a phone experience.
"Today, the reality is that the choice of channel varies and is dependent on the type of transaction."
In 1997, human voice transactions represented over 90% of a contact centre's activity. Today, that number has fallen to slightly over 50% of total call volume.
Call duration has also lengthened, in 1999, the average call duration was approximately 187 seconds. This year's average is now 239 seconds – representing a 30% increase.
It was also found that 38% of contact centre managers polled believed that a centre's ability to resolve a query during first call "is the most important factor in service improvement".
Mr George said: "Contact centres still rely on the standard efficiency metrics. Abandon rate is the most commonly used target with 90.1% of participating centres using it as a key metric, while only 63.4% of centres use First Call Resolution as a performance target. These findings indicate a discrepancy between what customers want and what contact centres focus their costs and energy on."
Dimension Data founded in 1983, was awarded 80 industry awards in 2007.
(DS)
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