Investing in faster complaint resolution reduces compensation costs, enhancing customer satisfaction.
The Methodology
The following outlines the recommended steps to implement this methodology:
A broadband provider analysed their complaint handling process and found that delayed resolutions were increasing compensation costs. On average, it took 40 days to resolve a complaint, and each case resulted in Ā£50 in compensation due to refunds, goodwill gestures, or service credits.
To reduce resolution time, they invested Ā£200K in additional customer service staff, enabling them to handle more complaints per day. This cut the average resolution time from 40 days to 10 days, significantly reducing escalations and compensation costs. As a result, average compensation per complaint dropped from Ā£50 to Ā£20, leading to annual savings of Ā£500K.
Not all complaints carry the same compensation cost; prioritise those with high refund or goodwill payout rates.
Ensure reliable data on how long complaints take to resolve and the average compensation amount per case.
Determine how increasing complaint-handling capacity improves resolution speed and cost efficiency.
Businesses in telecom, utilities, retail, and financial services can all benefit from faster complaint resolution.
Key themes of the research include:
The research is based on interviews with senior executives (including Chief Executive Officers, Chief Operating Officers and Customer Service or Customer Experience Directors) and online surveys with 751 employees in a variety of roles, across organisations and sectors, 929 consumers and 500 young people aged between 16 and 21. The research was conducted between December 2022 and February 2023.
Around 67% of UK employees spanning a wide range of roles, departments or functions, spend significant amounts of time in their job dealing with customers. Therefore, for many organisations, the profession of customer service is about embedding a service culture to deliver the organisationās commercial and customer experience objectives, as well as developing appropriate skills in specific roles.Ā The research identifies that there is a growing requirement for broader and more advanced skills and lays out in detail what these skills and capabilities will be.
Customer service provides a challenging and rewarding career with genuine pathways to develop skills and experience but potential employees are not always aware of the breadth of career opportunities and many are more likely to see customer service as a foundation for other careers than a respected profession offering good career opportunities.Ā The research presents 5 main pathways for careers in customer service.
To conclude, our research highlights 9 areas to improve the perception and recognition of roles and careers in customer service as well as practical recommendations to aid organisations in addressing them.
With almost 80% of UK GDP generated by the service sector, there is an urgent need to define, develop and measure productivity in a service context.
This Breakthrough Research examines the perspectives of senior managers, employees and customers on productivity in a service context.
The research looks at how organisations have sought to improve both their productivity and customer satisfaction, and recommends a framework to enable organisations to improve and measure their performance.
