Telephone Support is Consumers’ No.1 Customer Service Channel

One would safely assume that in our modern world of multichannel customer support, aided via the means of social media, email or web self-service etc., the old method of voice communication, i.e. ‘the old school telephone conversation’ had died a death. Well folks, you’d be wrong, very wrong.

Sure, we’re a telecoms company so we’re naturally going to feel a little superior when we tell you that in-fact; the tried and tested phone call is still the world’s favoured means of communication for customer support by a long way. We recently published an infographic on ‘Customer Experience Explained’ which highlights how one-to-one voice calls will always be the consumers’ favoured means of communication. New research reinforces our infographic, as it is found that 79% of consumers would choose to pick up the phone when in seek of customer service, versus a mere 2% who use social media and forums.

Let’s see how the results stack up when you look at our bar chart that explains consumers’ preferred method of receiving customer support…

Graph to show the consumers’ preferred customer support channel.

Traditional 1:1 phone support is an expensive channel for many businesses when you consider the cost of the call centre agent’s salaries, building rent, recruitment, training, IT support, various telecom charges, tea and coffee etc.  BUT – if you kill that channel, you could potentially be committing homicide to 79% of your customer base, and guess what? The 2% minority will only just Tweet to ask you what your telephone number is. “LOL”.

@Ryanair can I please have the customer service UK contact phone number please. It’s impossible to find. It’s to discuss a booking

— Adam Haslam (@AdamHaslam) January 23, 2014

Jokes aside, telephone support is a customer service channel businesses simple can’t afford to ignore. Phone support has consistently continued to be the most popular and reliable customer support channel as the majority of consumers would prefer to have a real conversation with a living-and-breathing human being to resolve their (sometimes complex, particular, or urgent) issues in the quickest and easiest way possible.

Why not come and talk to us at the Internet Retailing Expo 2014 on 26^th & 27^th March 2014 at Birmingham’s NEC Arena to discuss how you can maximise the productivity your businesses telephone customer support channel.

And let’s not forget the new impending government regulation that is going to affect the way companies use non-geographic premium rate telephone numbers for post sales customer support.

By David Bell