Toronto, Canada, November 23, 2015 – 3C Contact Services (www.3CContactServices.com), North America’s premier cost-effective provider of contact center solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses, is weighing in on a new poll which shows which industries consumers rated the worst for customer service.
According to a recent Gallup poll, the best customer service comes from pharmacies and banks, with over one third of respondents saying they received “excellent” service. Retail stores and fast food restaurants were rated the lowest, with less than one fifth of those surveyed describing their service as high. (Source: Swift, A. and Ander, S., “Banks and Pharmacies Rate Best in Customer Service in U.S.,” Gallup, November 12, 2015; http://www.gallup.com/poll/186593/banks-pharmacies-rate-best-customer-service.aspx.)
“Customer service is important to any business, but as the result of the Gallup poll shows, some industries take it more seriously than others,” says Dmitri Kuleshoff, Operations Manager at 3C Contact Services. “Clothing stores and fast food chains received far less impressive scores, so this should be a wakeup call to those industries. These score especially important since those industries typically have the tightest margins, meaning good customer service could be the difference between a lot of these retailers succeeding or failing.”
The poll also found a big difference in customer’s satisfaction depending on the respondent’s age. While older people were more likely to go to stores and rated their service higher, millennials and younger generations were less likely to go and less likely to find customer service to be poor.
“Businesses need to ensure that their customer service appeals to millennials,” Kuleshoff adds. “Millennials often prefer using digital services over going into a store, so the same service that is seen as ‘excellent’ by older customers may be seen as ‘bad’ by younger ones.”
Gallup claims that the results of the poll indicate that in-person customer service is becoming less important as more people switch to digital services and online shopping. And just because a store is brick-and-mortar doesn’t mean they can’t use digital customer service options; in fact, these are likely necessary for success. For retailers, allowing customers to schedule pickup options online or print coupons for in-store purchases are ways to increase customer service. Fast-food restaurants should also be exploring the option of online orders.
“Many retailers need to be considering other customer service options. For instance, when a customer has a problem with an item, they don’t want to have to drive down to a store to solve their complaint. This is where call centers and online customer service come into play,” Kuleshoff concludes. “If a customer’s complaint can be resolved over the phone or through an online chat, they are going to be more satisfied with the service they received without their ever having to step inside a store.”
3C Contact Services provides its partners’ agents with the necessary customer service skills needed to resolve a number of situations. For more information, visit www.3CContactServices.com.
