Some major firms offering ‘shockingly poor’ customer service across the board at their contact centres, Which? finds
Major firms are failing in every area of customer service as standards plumb new depths in the post-pandemic era, Which? has found.
Many businesses were already offering sub-standard customer service before Covid forced them to close contact centres and cut support staff – but Which? is now calling on firms in key sectors to up their game in areas where customer service has failed to improve or become even worse since then.
New Which? research shows millions of people are finding they are routinely ignored or left on hold by businesses. Even when they do get through, their problems are compounded by uncaring or poorly-trained staff or ineffective chatbots.
The consumer champion surveyed more than 3,000 members of the public about their most recent customer service experience in the energy, financial services, retail and telecoms sectors.
Which? asked people about their most recent experience with seven aspects of customer service including how easy it was to find the company’s contact details, how long it took to get through to someone who could help, and how well the query was dealt with overall.
On average, around a fifth (20%) were unhappy with their most recent customer service experience – but this climbed to more than two in 10 (22%) for the telecoms sector and a quarter (25%) for the energy industry. The energy sector had a higher proportion of dissatisfied customers in all seven areas.
Telecoms companies had higher dissatisfaction scores in five out of seven areas. Consumers were often frustrated with how long it took to get through to a company and have their query answered.
Almost a quarter were unhappy with how long it took to speak to someone who could help (23%) and how long it took to get an answer to their query (22%) in their most recent interaction with customer service. These figures rose to around a third (33% and 31% respectively) for those contacting energy companies.
Scottish Power and Ovo customers were particularly dissatisfied with these aspects of customer service – with almost half of Scottish Power (49%) and Ovo (47%) customers saying they were unhappy with the wait to get through to someone who could help.
One Scottish Power customer said:
“It took ages to get hooked up to live chat. The AI chat bot was useless and it took so long to get the answer I needed.” An Ovo customer said: “It took 90 minutes for an agent to finally accept a live chat.”
Telecoms customers were also disgruntled with long wait times. One Virgin Media customer said “It was hard to get through the automated line to actually speak to someone, and once I was speaking to a rep they had no clue how to help.”
Some customers also said it was difficult to find contact information in the first place. Almost a fifth of respondents were unhappy with the ease of finding contact information (17%), and with the methods they were provided with (18%).
For energy companies, these figures rose to around a fifth (21% and 24% respectively). Scottish Power, Ovo, and British Gas stood out as performing especially poorly in this area. Over a third (36%) of Scottish Power customers were dissatisfied with the contact options provided, and three in 10 (29%) of Ovo customers found it difficult to find contact information. A quarter (25%) of British Gas customers found it difficult to find contact information and three in 10 (29%) were dissatisfied with the options available.
When it came to the telecoms sector, a quarter (26%) of Sky customers struggled to find contact information. One Sky customer said: “It was very difficult to find a number to speak with Sky. This was after trying the chat option on the Sky app which was very poor and didn’t help at all. Even searching online for a contact number was difficult.”
Unfortunately, many customers continued to experience poor customer service after getting through to a company. A fifth (21%) who contacted an energy company were dissatisfied with how seriously the company took their issue.
Some sectors performed better in the consumer champion’s survey but there is still evidence that some firms in these areas offer sub-par customer service. For example, in financial services, eight in 10 of respondents overall said they were happy with how easy it was to find contact information (79%) and how seriously their issue was taken (82%).
However, there are still challenges in the sector – with many traditional big banks falling behind digital-first challenger banks in Which?’s annual survey on customer satisfaction with their bank.
These findings highlight just how dramatically the quality of customer service can vary between sectors and individual companies. It is never OK for firms to provide sub-standard customer service, but in essential sectors providing vital services millions rely on every day, it is completely unacceptable.
The consumer champion wants people to be able to easily contact companies, without unnecessary barriers and in the way that suits them best – whether that is speaking to a person or a chatbot.
As part of its drive to improve customer service standards, Which? is asking all consumers to help shape its campaigning by sharing their customer service nightmare stories using a simple online tool.
Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said:
“Too many people are experiencing shockingly poor customer service – whether that means struggling to get through at all, deficient chatbots or poorly trained staff that only seem to make the problem worse.
“Our research has found shoddy customer service in a number of sectors – with the energy industry performing particularly poorly.
“Any companies falling short on customer service need to up their game. Everyone should be able to get the answers they need without long waits or endless loops, be kept informed and treated fairly, with empathy and as an individual.”
Right of replies
A British Gas spokesperson said:
“We want to deliver the best possible customer experience. This year we have handled around 22 million contacts from our customers, including an increase in calls from those needing more help and advice, and we’ve invested £25 million in our customer services operations to meet this demand.
“We’ll have 700 new colleagues joining our contact centres by the end of this year with longer opening hours from mid–January, and we’re rolling out additional training on supporting customers with financial difficulties across our call centre.”
Ovo shared the below information on their customer service.
Telephone contact: Since Q2 2023, Ovo’s average speed of answer for telephone calls has been less than 180 seconds. The most recent results for Q3 to be published by Citizens’ Advice show that this was 117 seconds on average in Q3.
Email: Ovo has consistently answered more than 80% of emails within two working days. Citizens’ Advice Q3 results show 89% of emails responded within two working days.
Webchat: Ovo targets a 5 minute SLA (service legal agreement) for responding to live chats. Since the beginning of July 2023, Ovo have responded to 68% of chats within that SLA.
A ScottishPower spokesperson said:
“We have been working tirelessly to improve the standard of our customer service and we’re pleased to see the majority of our customers feel we are providing them with a good service. Part of our works have seen significant improvements in some key areas including our speed of answer and contact channel availability and we are committed to continuing this work to improve and enhance our services for all of our customers.
“During the cost of living crisis we are particularly focussed on helping our customers who are struggling and we will continue to do everything we can to help them, including asking the Government for greater support on their behalf.”
Which? is the UK’s consumer champion, here to make life simpler, fairer and safer for everyone. Our research gets to the heart of consumer issues, our advice is impartial, and our rigorous product tests lead to expert recommendations. We’re the independent consumer voice that influences politicians and lawmakers, investigates, holds businesses to account and makes change happen.
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Research: In June 2023, Which? surveyed 3,372 members of the public who contacted a customer service team – across the energy, financial services, home improvements, in-store retail, online retail, telecoms and travel sectors – in the last year. Fieldwork was carried out by Focaldata on behalf of Which?
