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Telecommunications sector must engage better with customers; Latest sector report calls for telecoms firms to improve customer service in order to rebuild trust(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) London, UK - A recent report from the Institute of Customer Service finding that more customers experience a problem with their telecoms provider than any other, while customer satisfaction in the telecoms sector continues to decline at a faster rate than the UK average, Telecoms organisations are urged to improve. The UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) reveals the average score for the Telecoms sector now stands at 72.2, down 1.1 points since January 2014 compared to the all-sector average fall of 0.8 over the same period. The sector is now 4.1 points lower than the all-sector average of 76.3. More people experience a problem with their telecoms provider (23 per cent) than with any of the 12 other sectors surveyed in the UKCSI. 80% of customers who experience a problem report it to organisations, considerably higher than the UK average across all sectors (72.7%). There is a significant range of scores of customer satisfaction scores in this sector. The top rated telecommunications organisation, Tesco Mobile, received a score of 85.8 (out of 100), an increase of more than three points since July 2013, and was placed fourth in the overall index of all UK companies. Giff Gaff was the only other Telecomms organisation which scored higher than the UK all sector average for customer satisfaction. Six organisations registered a drop in satisfaction of more than one point. It is clear from the results of UKCSI that customers want a balance of cost and good service with 65 per cent of respondents favouring this option. More customers would be happy paying more for the highest levels of service - 20 per cent favoured this option while only 15 per cent of respondents were prepared to compromise service to pay less. Unsurprisingly, the most common method for reporting a problem is the telephone with 78 per cent of customers using this channel. There is also an increasing number of customers using social media to contact organisations about a problem; since January 2014 this has increased from 3.5 per cent to 5.1 per cent of customers. 45% of customers who made a complaint said they had to escalate it and 9% of those did so using social media. Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service commented: "The results of the latest UKCSI demonstrate the close link between customer service and business performance; organisations with higher customer satisfaction also benefit from stronger ratings for trust, reputation, recommendation and likelihood to remain a customer. Organisations that deliver poor levels of customer service put these at risk, underlining the importance of customer service as a driver of business performance." The UKCSI, carried out by the Institute of Customer Service, includes over 40,000 responses from more than 9,000 customers. During these interviews customers gave insight into 197 of the UK's leading brands across 13 different sectors. Of these, the Telecoms sector was ranked 9th, and experienced a drop of 1.1 points between January and July 2014. The Telecommunications & Media sector includes over 3,000 customer responses. Notes to editors For further information please contact Nathan Field/Sam Golden/Tom Ingoldby [email protected] T el: 0207 680 5500 About the Institute of Customer Service The Institute of Customer Service is the professional body for customer service delivering tangible benefit to organisations and individuals so that our customers can improve their customers' experience and their own business performance. The Institute is a membership body with a community of over 400 organisational members - from the private, public and third sectors - and over 5,000 individual memberships. For more information about the Institute of Customer Service go to: www.instituteofcustomerservice.com UK Customer Satisfaction Index UKCSI (UK Customer Satisfaction Index) is the national measure of customer satisfaction. It is based on an online survey of consumers, geographically and demographically representative of the UK population. The UKCSI began in January 2008 and is published twice a year, normally January and July. The Index covers 13 sectors - 11 in the private sector as well as local and national public services. Sector reports giving a detailed breakdown of scores by sector and organisation are available. Customers are asked to rate organisations on customer priorities that they have identified as important. Priorities are grouped in terms of professionalism; quality and efficiency; ease of doing business; problem solving and timeliness. Each priority is given a weighted score. The weighted satisfaction scores are used to produce the index. Customers score their responses for each measure on a 1-to-10 scale. Overall scores for each sector are mean averages of all responses. The overall UKCSI score for each organisation is the average of all of its customers' satisfaction scores, weighted for each question grouping. The July 2014 UKCSI includes 40,842 unique responses. 9,522 customers have been surveyed. Customers are geographically and demographically representative of the UK population and participate in the survey through an online panel. Customers are asked to provide a score for organisations based on their most recent transaction. 197 individual organisations received a UKCSI rating. Only organisations that exceed a minimum sample size are scored in the 13 sector reports. In addition, scores are given for 16 generic providers including "your local NHS / Hospital", "your local Council", "your local restaurant" etc. . (c) 2014 M2 COMMUNICATIONS |