Airline companies failing to provide customers with ways to get in touch at the risk of losing their custom.
The majority of sectors in the UK are falling well short of providing ‘excellent’ contactability to their customers and prospects, finds latest research, with airlines emerging as the worst culprit among a poor-performing group. These findings – conducted across a number of sectors including retail, banks, hotels and supermarkets – are particularly astonishing in today’s connected world, where reputations are made and lost on internet reviews and competition across channels is increasingly fierce.
The research commissioned by Yonder Digital Group canvassed 2,000 UK consumers, asking whether they felt that companies in a range of sectors were easy to get in touch with and efficient at getting queries resolved rapidly and effectively. Today’s consumers are in fact increasingly accustomed to swift query response, across multiple channels, but the research results show that many sectors are failing to meet these taxing demands.
Only 10% of consumers were happy to rate airlines as ‘excellent’ for ease of contact, a woeful result for an industry which often experiences high volumes of consumer queries and complaints due to unexpected events, and therefore should be at the very top of their game; resolving queries rapidly and efficiently should be considered a bare minimum for airline companies. With previous Yonder research showing that 81% of consumers simply take their business elsewhere if their queries aren't answered quickly and effectively by a company, it is highly risky for airlines to continue overlooking their levels of ‘contactability’.
|
SECTOR |
Ease of Contact standard |
|||
|
Excellent |
Good |
Basic |
Poor |
|
|
Online-only retailers |
25% |
33% |
28% |
15% |
|
Banks |
24% |
34% |
28% |
15% |
|
Hotels |
23% |
37% |
31% |
10% |
|
Supermarkets |
19% |
34% |
33% |
13% |
|
Mobile phone companies |
17% |
33% |
33% |
17% |
|
Utility companies |
17% |
33% |
32% |
19% |
|
Internet providers |
16% |
31% |
34% |
19% |
|
Insurance companies |
16% |
32% |
37% |
16% |
|
DIY stores |
13% |
29% |
42% |
16% |
|
Fashion shops |
12% |
29% |
41% |
19% |
|
Car brands |
11% |
24% |
46% |
19% |
|
Delivery firms |
10% |
27% |
39% |
24% |
|
Airlines |
10% |
26% |
41% |
23% |
Chris Robinson, Yonder Digital Group CEO, comments, “Customers have individual preferences for contacting companies, which is why businesses lose out when they don’t offer a range of touch points. At crucial moments in the journey to purchase, many customers will look for a live agent, particularly for urgent or non-standard queries. Businesses that fail to provide support at these critical stages risk losing customers to competitors with superior support services. As the results show, a large proportion of companies are still falling well below the mark, suggesting there is a long way to go for UK industries to catch up with modern expectations.”
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
