ISPs in UK lack good customer service
Talisma Corporation, a leading provider of Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions like Web self-service, email response management, live chat, VoIP, phone, and a system-wide knowledge base conducted a survey over the online customer service provided by 50 leading UK broadband providers in February 2007.
During the survey, the following factors became criteria for testing customer service:
- The quickness with which the ISPs respond to the customers’ complaints
- Completeness and correctness of responses
- Personalization of calls and emails
- FAQ and other useful information on their websites
Ironically, some of the major broadband providers were reported to have offered poor customer service mainly due to their lack of email responses to the customers. In addition, they were also inefficient in providing correct information to the customers. Interestingly, some of the small individual broadband providers fared well in this survey and provided better customer service to their customers.Jon McNerney, vice president international operations at Talisma, says:”Selecting a broadband ISP is similar to choosing an electricity or gas provider; customers are primarily concerned about the price rather than who provides the service. In this high-churn commodity market, good customer service is vital for ISPs to differentiate themselves and encourage customer loyalty. Response times are critical and delays in answering calls and emails impact customer satisfaction significantly. This challenge will only increase as channels such as SMS and live chat are demanded as a basic service from increasingly sophisticated customers,”
Most of the ISPs are still in their infancy in the broadband basics of good customer service. According to Talisma’s report, only 6% of ISPs practiced personalization on calls or emails while only 16% of ISPs offered online chat facilities. Majority of ISPs (78%) did not offer self-help or FAQ section on their websites.”The key is in providing a consistent customer experience across multiple channels, to support enhanced service efficiency, boost customer confidence, and improve retention efforts. However, only 16% of the ISPs audited have a unified view of customer interactions. Those companies that don’t support multiple communication channels and integrate their data to provide a complete customer service will struggle to compete,” added McNerney.
The survey exposed many shortcomings in online customer service offered by UK ISP. It was found that majority of broadband providers were not keen on offering satisfactory customer service to their customers. Each of the 50 ISPs was given a score out of 100 based on the test criteria, and the average score did not cross 60.
