Consumers still prefer the phone

Call centres and telephone conversations are the most critical facet of consumer-facing businesses but many companies are still not properly tailoring their customer service channels, according to two reports out today.

Alcatel subsidiary Genesys, a call centre software specialist, polled 2,367 consumers from around the world and found they now consider call centre agents the 'face' of a company. They base purchasing decisions on the quality of their experiences with these agents more so than other interactions.

The bad news for those operating call centres is that half of those surveyed said they have stopped doing business with a company due to a negative call centre experience. The good news is that 76 per cent of consumers said they stump up their hard-earned after using a good call centre.

Those findings are important in the context of separate research out today, commissioned by Cable & Wireless and Vertex. It found 72 per cent of first time customers won't touch a company again if they experience poor customer service.

And the main mistake organisations make? Not working out which channel is most suitable for a specific customer need.

Sixty per cent of customers still prefer using the phone and some companies have imposed interactive voice response (IVR) and web-based systems too hastily on customers, the research found. Two thousand UK consumers were polled.