Customers More Satisfied With Call Centers

According to the Contact Center Satisfaction Index 2008 report, overall customer satisfaction with commercial call centers is up slightly, to 72 percent from last year’s 70 percent. The online survey, conducted the CFI Group using the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, polled more than 2,200 participants who called a call center within the previous month and interacted with a customer service representative (CSR). Here are some more findings of the report:

* 95 percent of customers who have a satisfying call-center experience will do business with the same company again, compared to only 35 percent of dissatisfied customers;

* 92 percent of customers who have a satisfying call-center experience will recommend the company to others, while only 9 percent of dissatisfied customers will;

* 18 percent of call-center customers end their call with unresolved issues, and 56 percent of those customers are at risk of defection or have already decided to leave;

* customer satisfaction with the call center is 38 percent higher when issues are resolved on the first call than when it requires two or more calls, and satisfaction drops by 50 percent if issues aren’t resolved at all;

* customers whose issues are resolved on the first call are 49 percent more likely to continue doing business with the company than customers whose issues are unresolved;

* 77 percent of call-center customers were satisfied with their interaction with CSRs, the same percentage as last year; and

* the retail industry’s CSRs outperformed all other industries (banking, cable and satellite TV, cell phone service, government, hotels, insurance, personal computers) with a satisfaction score of 81 percent.

For more information, go to www.cfigroup.com .