Customer service in Australia ‘in serious decline’
The quality of customer service in Australia has dropped considerably over the last five years, according to a survey by AMR for industry body International Customer Service Professionals.
The announcement:
Melbourne, October 7, 2011: Customer service levels in Australia are in serious decline, with nearly two thirds of Australians believing they are far worse than they were five years ago, according to a new research conducted for the International Customer Service Professionals (ICSP), the official hosts of International Customer Service Week in Australia & New Zealand.
The study, undertaken by Australian research consultancy AMR and customer experience experts Feedback ASAP, surveyed Australians about their perceptions and experiences of customer service1. Results showed 58.5 per cent of respondents felt customer service has declined in the last 5 years, with only 17.4 per cent saying it has improved.
Complaints from consumers predominantly focused on poor staff attitudes, problems with overseas call centres, and a lack of personal touch and product knowledge, said AMR Melbourne General Manager, Mary Forgie.
“The research showed that poor staff attitudes are a stand-out factor in consumer dissatisfaction,” she explained. “In particular, people found attitudes from young workers in retail particularly wanting.”
She said high dissatisfaction with overseas call centres also contributed to the overall result, with many consumers stating that the lack of personalised service and low product knowledge was a serious issue.
Phil Prosser, CEO of customer service management firm, Feedback ASAP, said while the result related to overseas call centres was not surprising, “what is surprising is that many companies continue to use them in the same way despite the resentment and frustration they appear to create,” he said.
“Many businesses that use this tool are failing to use it well, and continue to simply focus on the cost saving and ignore the need to give customers good service. There will always be ome
customers who are not happy about having to go through a foreign call centre, but there are companies who have learned to do it well, and experience the bottom line benefit and increased customer satisfaction.”Forgie said among the 17.4 per cent of respondents who believed customer service had improved during the past five years, the outlook was positive. “The Australians that have seen an improvement in service levels in recent years believe the current economic environment is creating increased competition among businesses, encouraging better service training skills among staff, and an improved awareness of the importance of customer service,” she explained.
“These responses highlight the fact that there are a number of businesses who do take customers seriously, and their customers notice the difference,” said Ms Forgie.
Prosser said given the results, it would be interesting to see how well Australian businesses can move to capture the loyalty of an increasingly-dissatisfied market. “Now more than ever businesses need to retain every customer by supporting their frontline teams and making service a priority,” he said. “The reality is, the cost of getting your service wrong is the biggest handicap to growth. What’s more, with consumers now using social media as a tool to vent customer service dissatisfaction, Australian business can no longer afford to ignore this increasingly serious issue.”
ICSP CEO, Tricia Olsen concurred, adding: “The results clearly show that customers in Australia currently want more from business in regard to customer service, and this expectation is, on the whole, not being met. There is a clear desire and pressure from consumers for their providers to be both price competitive, and to deliver good customer service.”
Source: AMR
Business tends to run by bean counters hence lowest common denominator service – it’s easier to quantify a hard cost saving, harder to quantify ROI from improved service.
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I am fed up with going into a retail store and being totally ignored by upstart sale assistants (not teenagers usually middle aged women) who think they can treat customers like second class citizens!! But what is really funny is when to go to an upmarket store such as armani or lous vuttion etc the sales assistants look down at you as if you cant afford it (I earn $95k a year) yet they are on about 40k a year!!! I now shop online (esp from the USA)
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I’m with you fed up. A vast majority of retail service here is a disgrace (here comes all the retailers screaming about the problem being the customers not the staff).
Then they blame GST exemptions on the mass migration to online shopping!
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I spend a lot of working time in Asia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and China. When I return to Australia, I always notice just how bad or non existent customer service is in Australia, compared with many Asian countries where the customer is considered important.
When I walk in a store here in Australia, especially some of the brand name stores, the staff sometimes look at me in contempt that I actually walked in their store and asked a question. The fact that I may be earning several times more per hour than them, does not make any difference, if I am not dressed in the brand names, they may ignore me.
When I teach tourism, customer service and cross cultural awareness to small business, I always remind them that the reason that they are in business is to provide excellent service to their customers.
always remind them
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@carole….What? You have the audacity to walk into a shop and ask an assistant a question? How rude of you (being a customer) walking into a shop and disturbing a sales assistant who is more than likely speaking to their collegue about their weekend or even boyfriend troubles!!!! In all seriousness you never know who may walk into the shop…maybe a secret shopper, someone from head office or even their next boss!!!
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I agree customer service standards are slipping in Australia. I not going to blame the service staff it is the management that will spend tens of thousands on point of sale equipment and next to nothing on educating or training the sales staff. Training and education is not valued by management and it is always seem a job for the government. Look at stores that have great customers service the management participate in training and there is a culture of training. Waiting outside an Apple Store one day I watched the staff role play customer service incidents and when I ask the tech what just happened he said it is how they start every day with a talk on a product and a customer service role play.
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Don’t be confused if you earn a fat salary, dress in pricey labels and walk into a shop and receive poor treatment – until the service culture becomes something valuable to Australian companies, those pesky $16/hr employees won’t understand.
Every single customer deserves the superstar treatment but unfortunately, and speaking from experience, Australian companies don’t foster a respect for the customer relationship. They’ll train employees in selling but then skip the 101 in basic service culture nuances – speaking in full sentences, offering alternatives before you say ‘no’, handling complaints respectfully, body language, eye contact, proper phone manner, discretion with personal chatter etc etc.
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