Callers unimpressed by customer experience during pandemic, research finds

New research commissioned by PHMG has revealed that telephone usage is up significantly over the last 12 months.

Perhaps spurred on by a need to double-check businesses’ opening hours, query service levels or discuss payments, consumers have chosen the phone over social media and online chatbots.

Of 1,000 customers surveyed across the US, 92% of respondents said they consider audio touchpoints important to business comms and brand identity, but 79% said they believed caller experiences delivered by businesses could be improved. Surveys of consumers across the UK and Australia revealed similar results.

Acknowledging that calls can be more time-consuming than alternative methods, consumers blamed long hold times, unanswered calls (with no alternative contact details or information about opening hours) and difficulty in being routed to the correct person or department.

These issues are solvable, though, with high-quality on-hold music and messaging able to reduce the perceived time spent queueing, as well as providing an opportunity to answer common questions that may render the call unnecessary.

Not only that, but auto attendant services can optimise call routing to efficiently direct calls, and out-of-hours messaging can inform customers of better times to call, rather than lines simply ringing on end.

Survey conducted by OnePoll on behalf of PHMG. The poll surveyed 1,000 consumers and 1,000 business decision-makers in each of the US, UK and Australia.