Telecom is one of the more challenged industries in the area of customer retention. Ever evolving technologies, aggressive marketing and failure to meet customer expectations have resulted in relatively high percentages of customers changing providers.
More than one quarter (26 percent) of wireless customers changed providers in 2012, up from 21 percent in 2011, according to the Accenture Global Consumer Survey of more than 12,000 customers in 32 countries.
“The wireless companies in the U.S. had been getting better – ATT has reduced their churn quite a bit,” Atlanta, Ga.-based telecom analyst Jeff Kagan told Loyalty 360. “Ten years ago the carriers were selling so many services that they weren’t even worried about churn. They had a lot of new business, so they only had a limited amount of ability to take care of the customer. Over last five years that has been changing.”
As wireless phones have become Internet-enabled, it is a lot more complex for wireless companies to satisfy customer needs in terms of customer service and signal/speed availability, Kagan added.
The customer disloyalty in telecom was higher than in any industry, though the combined results show that companies across industries can improve their customer retention efforts.
The majority (85 percent) of consumers say the companies could have done something differently to prevent them from switching. Two-thirds of those surveyed said that having their customer service issue resolved during their first contact was a critical factor whether they would remain loyal to a company. Just over half (54 percent) indicated that they might have remained loyal if they had been rewarded for doing more business with their provider.
According to the survey, broken promises are a top area of frustration for consumers, with 63 percent of respondents saying that it’s extremely frustrating when a company delivers a different customer service experience from what it promised upfront. Seventy-eight percent of consumers say they are likely to switch providers when they encounter such broken promises. Other frustrations that make consumers more likely to switch include:
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Having to contact customer service multiple times for the same reason (selected by 65 percent of consumers)
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Dealing with unfriendly customer service agents (65 percent)
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Being on hold for a long time when contacting customer service (61 percent)
According to Accenture, the research also found that nearly half (48 percent) of respondents say that, compared to 12 months ago, they have higher expectations of getting specialized treatment for being a “good” customer. Half of the respondents said that it is extremely important for customer service people to know their history, while 31 percent prefer companies that use information about them to make their experience more efficient from one step to the next.
Only 24 percent of those surveyed said that companies do indeed provide tailored services.