Customer Service and Telephone Statistics Your Business Should Know

Businesses around the United States should spend time researching known statistics that will help them develop and understand an ideal customer service experience. A Courteous Answering Service brings you this article detailing important customer service and telephone statistics your business should know.

Customer Service Statistics every business should know

• 67% of customers hang up on a phone connection out of frustration they could not talk to a real person and 75% of customers believe it takes too long to reach a live agent.

Nearly 7 out of 10 Americans will hang up on your business if you do not give them an opportunity to speak with a live agent. Business owners are suffering if they allow their phone to ring until forwarded to an answering machine or if they provide a series of prompts directing callers to push various numbers for their various reasons of calling.

Why are you making it so hard for a customer or potential customer to speak with a representative of your business? Cut out the maze work and direct all of your callers to a real, live human being and keep all 10 callers as opposed to only keeping the 3 that will interact with a pre-recorded menu or voicemail.

If 75% of your callers are frustrated with how long it takes them to get to a live agent you have a customer service responsibility to decrease their wait times. By hiring a professional answering service or 24 hour call center, you are giving each of your customers the undivided and immediate attention they require and expect.

• According to an American Express study, the most cringe-worthy phrases customers don’t want to hear:

1. “We’re unable to answer your question. Please call xxx-xxx-xxxx to speak to a representative from xxx team.”
2. “We’re sorry, but we’re experiencing unusually heavy call volumes. You can hold or try back at another time.”
3. Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold.”

If your business has multiple incoming phone lines and only one receptionist to answer those calls, you will inevitably send some calls to your answering machine or will provide frustratingly long hold times. By not attending to your calling customers when they need you, you are showing them that their time is not valuable to your business. If you do not supply your callers with the assistance they need on their timetable, they will hang up and turn to your competitors for help.

• 78% of consumers bail on their intended transaction because of a poor service experience.

This statistic is staggering as it shows you the importance of excellent customer service and the consequences your business faces if you don’t provide top notch service. Take a moment to imagine 10 customers standing in a line at a cash register with your product in their hand. Now imagine 8 of those 10 customers putting your product on the floor and walking away before purchasing it. You just lost customers because you were not able to give them the service they required and expected.

No matter how great your service or product is, your customer service needs to meet the expectations of consumers or your business will fail quickly. Having custom trained virtual receptionists attend to your callers 24/7 can definitely give you the service edge needed to stay in business.

• On average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase.

What does this interesting customer service statistic show you? It shows you the importance of keeping your customers happy and satisfied ‘now’ in order to keep them as loyal and returning customers in the ‘future.’ If you throw them to the wind after their purchase, what keeps them coming back to you?

Excellent customer service will keep your customers loyal and will foster their referrals to friends, family and acquaintances.

• Employees only ask for the customer’s name 21% of the time, says Contact Point’s Client Research Study.

This statistic absolutely shocks our virtual receptionist team! How can your employees or in-house receptionist not be trained to ask for your customer’s name? This shows us that there is a severe lack of personal customer service towards your callers. You are not addressing them as an individual but rather, by not making your calls personally charged with their first names, you are treating them as if they hold no importance in your establishment.

We frequently use the first names of our clients’ callers because it gives a personal touch and a clear attention to that specific person. If you are generalizing your callers and not caring enough about them to even ask for their name, you are definitely losing customer service brownie points in our opinion.

If you found this article focused on customer service and telephone statistics your business should know incredibly helpful, stay tuned and follow our future articles on our Facebook page here. These are just some of the top statistics that your business should know and try to improve upon.

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