Customer Service Time To Respond

Customer Journey: How Important is “Time to Respond”?

Having been in and around the telecoms industry for the past 27 years it’s in my DNA that when a phone rings it should be answered within 3 rings. Now I know that over the last year the disruption caused by the pandemic has left a lot of companies still playing catch-up but I want to explore the basic fundamentals.

Recently, two incidents stood out to me. Unfortunately, they are not unusual it’s just that they happened close together.

The first was a phone call to a local business, let’s call them Company A. After several rings I was put through to their voicemail system which gave me the following message “Sorry we’re not available right now, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you within the next 24 hours. Now imagine, as a potential customer I’ve first found them online, they provide what I’m looking for but I have a few questions and I need the answers now so I can complete this task and move on to the next in my busy day, so I call. Being told that they will get back to me within the next 24 hours does not fill me with warmth.

If I’m to move this task from “doing” to “done” I’m going to quickly move on to the next company that can help me, and Company A has probably lost a future customer. Now I know that there could be many reasons why Company A delivered the message they did but that’s not my problem. As a potential customer in the awareness phase, they failed the test.

The second incident was more of a ‘pet hate’. Calling a Government body should always come with a health warning. You first have to battle through their long-winded auto-attendant messages to get in the right queue. Then, having sat on the phone in that queue for 36 minutes and 22 seconds you are greeted by a human who asks you the same questions you had to answer to get in the queue. After providing the information through gritted teeth I was greeted with the words “thank you Mr Glynn someone will get back to you within 5 working days.”

My immediate reaction was one of dismay so I blurted out “after sitting on the phone for over 36 minutes is that the best you’ve got?”

She went on to explain that the department was inundated with calls due to a press article and that she had been drafted in from another department to help handle the calls. The press article was totally unrelated to why I was calling but I could see her dilemma. I thanked her for her time and put the phone down.

In both incidents, the customers' expectation was not met.

Attention span, in general, has changed, but it appears that most companies and organisations are sadly lagging behind.

It would not have taken much to improve my experience in the two incidents listed above.

Company A could simply change their message showing that they cared about missing my call and providing me with an alternative contact method. Better still, they could add a two-way text messaging and instant callback solution to their website. It doesn’t matter how small you are you still have to provide excellent service, the customer demands it. After all, how much is a lost customer worth to you?

The Government incident, well, where do you start. How about at the end. If the end result of every conversation in that queue was they’d be called back within 5 working days couldn’t this have been dealt with at the beginning of the call by the auto-attendant? “Due to unprecedented demand, we are unable to deal with your query immediately. Please leave your name, telephone number and the reason for your call and someone will get back to you within 5 working days.” Same message, but you wouldn’t have to waste 36 minutes of your life to hear it. They could also have had an alert on the relevant pages of their website.

We are living in a Digital 1st Age. According to Salesforce 63% of customers say how they obtain goods and services have changed forever and 86% of customers will spend more money for a better experience.

Even with email, 88% of customers expect a response from your business within 60 minutes.

At each stage of the customer journey, there are touchpoints. The most important attribute of good customer service, according to customers themselves, is a fast response time. How quickly do you respond to your own prospects and customers at each touchpoint?

Could you improve it, if yes how?