The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
"I Need to Speak to a Carbon Based Life Form!"
Thursday - April 20, 2006 04:16 PM in
As Peter mentioned a few days ago, we've been quite busy preparing for next week's Frost & Sullivan "Mindxchange" in Orlando and getting out the results of our latest SectorPulse studies on the customer care performance of the major wireless carriers and several larger financial institutions. In general, we've found that service quality among the wireless carriers has substantially improved over the last two years (although more room remains to get better) and that Verizon and T-Mobile tend to provide the better levels of overall customer care caller satisfaction.
I've been surprised at the intense interest the banks are showing over the latest report versus limited interest in the past, and take it as a good sign that the major financial institutions are trying to become more customer centric. Washington Mutual has consistently dominated the institutions we track, earning an "A" grade in overall caller satisfaction, but the data is suggesting none of these institutions do a particularly great job in efficiently dealing with customers already frustrated before they make the call. In discussions with customer care professionals in the banking industry, we get the sense that as self service electronic banking increases, a greater percentage of calls come from customers trying to resolve problems. And the simple truth is that you can't "vent" or negotiate with a computer. So as the banks try and control costs by utilizing IVR technology to handle routine calls, they face the challenge of also dealing with more callers needing to speak with a live individual. Not an easy situation to resolve.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted at 04:16 PM by | | | |