Fasthosts
Reveal 78 Per Cent Of Consumers Failed By Slow Customer Service
Emails
Released
on = July 11, 2007, 8:39 am
Press
Release Author = Fasthosts
Internet Ltd
Industry
= Internet
& Online
Press
Release Summary = Fasthosts research has found that 78 per
cent of British consumers have been seriously disappointed by slow
responses to customer service email enquiries
Press
Release Body = According to research released by Fasthosts
Internet Ltd, a staggering 78 per cent of British consumers
have been disappointed by a slow response to a customer service
email enquiry, with the average consumer sending three emails before
receiving a satisfactory response. Further results from the Fastshosts
survey revealed:
-
One-third of British consumers have sent more than 10 emails about
a single customer service enquiry
- Nearly 60 per cent of customer service email enquiries wait more
than 24 hours for a reply
The
survey of some 1,300 UK consumers showed that 89 per cent of this
group has been led to defect to a competitor brand as a result.
The
'Fasthosts Customer Service Email Study' also found
that the average British consumer is only willing to wait up to
24 hours for a reply, with one in five (19 per cent) abandoning
their enquiry after only 12 hours. Women are more patient than men,
with 12 per cent prepared to wait up to a week, compared with only
7 per cent of men.
This
is concerning news for UK businesses that receive customer enquiries
by email. More than 30 per cent of consumers surveyed said they
regularly wait three days for a reply, while nine per cent have
waited up to a week and even two per cent reported it can regularly
take up to a month. Interestingly, men are statistically more likely
to receive a quicker response (21 per cent regularly receiving a
reply within six to 12 hours).
The
average consumer (51 per cent of the survey group) sends three emails
before receiving a satisfactory reply to their enquiry, while 33
per cent say they have sent up to 10 emails about a single enquiry.
Of the latter group, men seem to be most persistent, with 5 per
cent more men than women sending up to ten emails; while women are
more likely to abandon emails in favour of telephoning the company.
Slow
or poor responses to customer service emails were found to elicit
a negative emotional response in over 83 per cent of British consumers
- ranging from irritation and stress (a staggering 84 per cent);
to feeling so angry that they wanted to tell somebody close by (38
percent); powerlessness and desperation (27 per cent); with a further
12 per cent admitting to outright anger and a desire to address
the situation in person. Londoners unsurprisingly led the stress-brigade,
with 18.3 per cent having considered marching down to a business?
headquarters to vent their frustration in person.
95
per cent, approximately 35 million Britons, claim that their perception
of a business is negatively affected by slow responses to customer
service emails. 89 per cent of consumers were so annoyed that they
felt compelled to seek out a competitor business immediately. This
seemed to be most common for larger businesses; with 69 per cent
of consumers surveyed saying their online customer service was sub-standard.
Mark
Jeffries, CTO of Fastshosts Internet Ltd said, "British
businesses really need to sit up and pay attention to their response
rate for customer emails, or risk losing their customer base to
competitor brands. The public suffers real stress from slow or sub-standard
email replies so it is no surprise they feel so strongly about the
issue."
When
asked to rate online customer service gripes, "waiting too
long for a useful reply" and "automated replies that don't
answer questions? were joint top gripe (64 per cent each); one in
three consumers had suffered online customer service forms that
had insufficient space to type their request (35.2 per cent); and
31.5 per cent were regularly annoyed by the unprofessional style
of responses that they receive.
Jeffries
added, "Significantly, our research highlights that it isn't
just the speed of the response that matters to consumers it's how
quickly they receive the right information."
About
Fasthosts
As the UK's largest web hosting provider, Fasthosts
offers a comprehensive range of web solutions including domain name
registrations, email solutions (including mobile email services),
shared web hosting, dedicated servers, online payment services,
reseller web hosting and feature-rich broadband packages.
Web
Site = http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/
Contact
Details = Fasthosts PR Contact:
Bianca Morgan
Catalysis Communications
+44 (0)207 101 7318
Bianca.morgan@catalysis.co.uk
Richard
Stevenson
Fasthosts Internet Ltd
Discovery House
154 Southgate Street
Gloucester
GL1 2EX
United Kingdom
+44 (0)1452 561857
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