The five things that people find frustrating with customer services – and how My Resolution Hub can help
Over seven million people have used Resolver to make a complaint or resolve a problem. Our data and insights on those complaints mean we are able to identify new trends in the things that people are seeking help with – and understand more about what’s driving them.
By far, the most complained-about issue is customer service. Roughly half of our complaints over the last 12 months specifically mention customer service. Here are the top five most frustrating things for the people who use Resolver – and how My Resolution Hub can help you tackle them.
One-to-one conversations
Every study, review and analysis of customer service makes it clear that people want to be able to interact directly with another person – either by phone or email – and people who use Resolver are no different.
It makes sense to have a range of customer service options available to consumers, particularly where simple enquiries or problems can be resolved by automated features like chatbots or online Q&A’s or guides. But these can’t be the only option for your customers. Automation is only effective if the people who need help can bypass it easily.
Finding a way to identify who might need one-to-one help, prioritise complex issues and quickly resolve the simpler problems is one of the ways My Resolution Hub can help your customer service team step in and help where their services and abilities are best served.
The curse of the Q&A pages
Q&A pages can serve a useful function. But when something has gone wrong or isn’t working effectively, they can become a source of much frustration. Many firms are rather vague about actual problems on their Q&A pages – though being upfront that things can go wrong and offering practical advice is much more important and appreciated by your customers.
Unfortunately, many businesses require their customers to click through endless Q&A pages before they reach the ‘contact us’ details. By this point your customers are fed up and less likely to be reasonable if they find a phone number – and furious if they don’t.
Live chat, online forms and letters
Bringing complaint forms ‘in house’ is the most common trend we’ve seen in recent years, with most businesses offering these services. Live chat only really works if it really is live, with a person – and if there’s an option to quickly transfer you to the customer service team if the problem can’t be solved.
Online forms are even more contentious for consumers. While seemingly offering an alternative to email, they often have limited character counts, don’t allow attachments and don’t allow the consumer to respond to the resolution. This puts people in the rather surprising situation where they potentially have to write a letter to make a complaint.
Using My Resolution Hub can help manage the process of handing both enquiries and complaints effectively so you can avoid disputes becoming entrenched and more expensive to resolve in the long run.
Boomerang complaints
An emerging trend in customer service is the ‘boomerang complaint’. This is where a consumer is asked on the phone / live chat if their complaint is ‘resolved?’ If the business fails to carry out what was agreed when speaking to the customer, the complaint comes back – only now the customer is much more annoyed.
Boomerang complaints are increasingly common and arise from customer service staff either not being empowered to carry out the resolution or being reliant on another department to finish the job. Using My Resolution Hub means you can track every part of the complaint process to resolution, ensuring complaints don’t come back.
Listening
Roughly a third of all complaints don’t require monetary compensation – and another third only involve minor amounts. The vast majority of people making complaints just want the immediate problem resolved and – if service has been underwhelming – an apology. Yet an extraordinary number of these complaints go on to an Ombudsman, ADR scheme or even the courts.
So two-thirds of complaints could be sorted out quickly and effectively just through listening, apologising and minor payments. Just identifying these two distinct groups of complaints can help you dramatically reduce customer service costs, resolve complaints much quicker and retain your customers. My Resolution Hub can help you do this – and gain much more granular data on the trends in the things your customers seek help with.
