If you’ve ever been on the line with customer service, you realize that it isn’t always a pleasant experience. In most cases, you have to weave your way through a maze of button pushing and when you do finally get to talk to someone, it isn’t always going to go in your direction.
Since so many people have difficulty with customer service, they decided to do an interesting survey. 2000 Americans were involved in the survey, and all of them had dealt with customer support in the past.
According to FOX5 KVVU-TV, the pollsters wanted to find out how far the respondents were willing to go in order to avoid contacting customer service and the results are rather telling. 30% said they would rather do their taxes, 25% said they would like to go to the DMV instead and 28% said they would rather go to the dentist. Even 24% said they would rather shave their heads than deal with a customer service representative!
Twilio Flex used OnePoll to conduct this unusual survey. They wanted to know how customer service affected the habits of Americans and they also wanted to look at the pain that people experience when doing such. How far were they willing to go to avoid that pain?
62% of those who responded said they had stopped using a service at some time in the past because they had a bad customer service experience. On the other hand, 80% said they would be loyal to the company in the future if they had a positive experience.
Unfortunately, people were more likely to have a negative experience than a positive one. For example, the average amount of time spent on hold is an hour and a half to solve one issue. It also took three attempts, which is frustrating, to say the least.
Every time somebody contacts customer service they spend an average of 42 minutes on hold. Considering the fact that they have to do that three times for every issue on average, it really adds up quickly.
Even if they are able to speak to somebody, it is unlikely that the issue is going to be resolved. The respondents said that customer support was only successful about 46% of the time.
In the end, 65% didn’t feel that it was worth it to resolve an issue because of the effort and the time that was involved.
The survey also looked into the specific problems associated with customer service and the frustrations surrounding it. 45% said that they had been disconnected after speaking to one representative and being transferred. That was frustrating for most of the respondents.
42% said that they were frustrated because they had to contact the customer service line a number of times before things were resolved. They might even have to use a number of methods to do so, such as calling people or emailing.
66% of those who responded said they would simply delay reaching out because of all the frustrations associated with it. They would wait an average of 16 days before doing anything about the situation.
Because of the delay, people were likely to miss an opportunity to return products or were too late to cancel something. They might even end up losing money in the process, with 41% responding in that way.
According to SWNS, the general manager of Flex, Simonetta Turek, said that one of the more serious issues surrounding bad customer service is technology that is not made to stand up to the expectations of today’s customers.
They went on to say: “Representatives aren’t equipped to deliver seamless and contextual experiences when they’re using outdated technology not designed foremost with the customer experience and customer journey in mind. This results in a poor experience for both the representatives and customers.”
Not everything was negative. The respondents did say that if representatives could serve them better by having access to the information they needed, it would help. After all, they wouldn’t have to be transferred.
Some people would also appreciate speaking to an actual human rather than having to go through multiple methods of contacting robotic support before they got an answer.