Clarabridge Survey Uncovers What British Consumers Expect from UK’s Largest Brands

Survey reveals UK brands need to improve social customer service and
call centre support; Service still trumps price and product, and John
Lewis reigns as a customer service leader

LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Clarabridge,
Inc., the leading provider of Customer
Experience Management (CEM) solutions for the world’s top brands,
today revealed the results from a new survey examining customer
expectations of brands in the United Kingdom. In August 2016,
Clarabridge surveyed more than 1,150 consumers between the ages of 18
and 59 living in the UK. The results define the state of the UK market
in 2016 and highlight critical customer service improvement points that
will dictate the ongoing success of UK brands on a global scale.

Clarabridge’s survey results underscore the necessity for brands to
deliver a superior customer experience in today’s digital climate where
consumer expectations for timely and effective service are at an
all-time high. Specifically, Clarabridge discovered:

• UK brands need to improve customer service over social media: Only
  a third of problems (33%) that UK residents tweet at brands are
  resolved, and those that are handled have little sense of urgency. 50%
  of the problems tweeted at brands take more than 2 hours to be
  resolved, with only 11% of problems being resolved in less than 10
  minutes.
• Customer service calls are a weak spot for UK brands: Three
  quarters of UK residents have placed customer service calls to a
  business, but their experiences leave much to be desired in terms of
  satisfaction. A mere 5% of customers felt “completely satisfied” with
  their call experience and more than half of customers (64%) found
  their calls to be neutral to “not at all satisfying.” Call centres are
  responsible for 53% of customer’s biggest frustrations when
  interacting with brands/companies.
• John Lewis leads the pack as service still trumps price and
  product: Nearly half of all UK consumers state they would stop
  buying a brand’s products if a brand neglected to address their
  concerns. 100-year-old department store John Lewis led the way with
  32% of UK consumers who say the store has the best customer service
  above any other brand. Tesco and Waitrose are also among the leaders
  in providing the kind of customer service that consumers have grown to
  expect.
• Telecom companies can learn a thing or two from retail shops: Of
  any industry, UK customers perceived retail stores to have more
  superior customer service than any other industry (38%). Alternately,
  cell and phone service companies scored poorly with nearly half the
  population (47%) citing them as having the worst customer service of
  any industry.

“At Clarabridge, we believe in the power of listening to customer
feedback across multiple channels to understand the voice of the
customer and make changes that drive business success,” said Susan
Ganeshan, CMO of Clarabridge. “It is time for all UK brands to embrace
social media for customer service. These findings offer new insight into
the expectations of British consumers and illuminate multiple
opportunities for brands to change the way they interact with them,
saving time and money with improved results for everyone involved.”

Clarabridge sources customer feedback from 22 channels and provides
relevant insights for brands in the retail, financial services and other
industries to understand the voice of the customer and take action to
improve the experience across all stages of the customer’s journey. For
more information on how to elevate the customer experience in the United
Kingdom, read Clarabridge’s full report on the topic, “A
Look at UK Customer Expectations in 2016.”

About Clarabridge

Clarabridge’s SaaS customer experience management solution helps
hundreds of the world’s leading brands put customer feedback to work.
Offering the most comprehensive solution for omni-source listening,
accurate customer and text analytics, and real-time, guided action is
why leading brands trust Clarabridge to power their CX programs and
drive a customer focused strategy. The result: better customer
experiences. For more information, visit www.clarabridge.com.

Contacts

LaunchSquad for Clarabridge
Allie Rosenberg, 212-546-3665
clarabridge@launchsquad.com