Investing in service reduces complaints and associated handling costs.
The following outlines the recommended steps to implement this methodology:
A telecommunications company identified that slow resolution times and inconsistent customer follow-up were increasing complaint volumes and churn. They invested Ā£80,000 in agent training, improved CRM tools, and redesigned complaint handling processes. Within a year, complaint volumes dropped by 30%, reducing handling costs by Ā£140,000 and compensation expenses by Ā£40,000, while improved customer retention protected Ā£60,000 in revenue.
Include staff time, compensation, customer dissatisfaction impact, and reputational risk.
Prioritise fixing the sources of complaints rather than only addressing symptoms.
Monitor complaint rates, resolution times, and compensation trends for ongoing improvement.
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.
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.
This research examines the relationship between customer satisfaction and business performance over the 5 years.
The research showed that companies with customer satisfaction at least one point above the sector average achieve significantly stronger results, with 20.3% EBITDA, 7.4% compound revenue growth, and Ā£717,739 revenue per employee. In contrast, companies with customer satisfaction at least one point below the sector average perform much worse, with only 10.5% EBITDA, 0.1% compound revenue growth, and Ā£297,025 revenue per employee.
