78 PER CENT OF CONSUMERS FAILED BY SLOW CUSTOMER SERVICE EMAILS

-     One-third of British consumers have sent more than 10 emails about a
single customer service enquiry
-     Nearly 60 per cent of customer service email enquiries wait more than
24 hours for a reply

9 July 2007, Gloucester, UK:  A staggering 78 per cent of British consumers

have been disappointed by a slow response to a customer service email

enquiry, with the average consumer sending three emails before receiving a

satisfactory response, according to research released today by Fasthosts

Internet Ltd, (www.fasthosts.co.uk), the UK's number one web hosting

company. The survey of some 1,300 UK consumers 1,327 UK adults interviewed

by Tickbox.Net during June 2007 showed that 89 per cent of this group have

been led to defect to a competitor brand as a result.


The ‘Fasthosts Customer Service Email Study’ also found that the average

British consumer is only willing to wait up to 24 hours for a reply, with

one in five (19 per cent) abandoning their enquiry after only 12 hours.

Women are more patient than men, with 12 per cent prepared to wait up to a

week, compared with only 7 per cent of men.


This is concerning news for UK businesses that receive customer enquiries

by email. More than 30 per cent of consumers surveyed said they regularly

wait three days for a reply, while nine per cent have waited up to a week

and even two per cent reported it can regularly take up to a month.

Interestingly, men are statistically more likely to receive a quicker

response (21 per cent regularly receiving a reply within six to 12 hours).

The average consumer (51 per cent of the survey group) sends three emails

before receiving a satisfactory reply to their enquiry, while 33 per cent

say they have sent up to 10 emails about a single enquiry. Of the latter

group, men seem to be the most persistent sex, with 5 per cent more men

than women sending up to ten emails; while women are more likely to abandon

emails in favour of telephoning the company.



Slow or poor responses to customer service emails were found to elicit a

negative emotional response in over 83 per cent of British consumers –

ranging from irritation and stress (a staggering 84 per cent); to feeling

so angry that they wanted to tell somebody close by (38 percent);

powerlessness and desperation (27 per cent); with a further 12 per cent

admitting to outright anger and a desire to address the situation in

person. Londoners unsurprisingly led the stress-brigade, with 18.3 per cent

having considered marching down to a business’ headquarters to vent their

frustration in person.



 95 per cent, approximately 35 million Britons, claim that their perception

of a business is negatively affected by slow responses to customer service

emails. 89 per cent of consumers were so annoyed that they felt compelled

to seek out a competitor business immediately. This seemed to be most

common for larger businesses, with 69 per cent of consumers surveyed saying

their online customer service was sub-standard; while one in three Brits

said it was small businesses that most needed to improve their online

customer service skills.


Mark Jeffries, CTO of Fasthosts Internet Ltd said, “British businesses

really need to sit up and pay attention to their response rate for customer

emails, or risk losing their customer base to competitor brands. The public

suffers real stress from slow or sub-standard email replies so it is no

surprise they feel so strongly about the issue.

When asked to rate online customer service gripes, ‘waiting too long for a

useful reply’ and ‘automated replies that don’t answer questions’ were

joint top gripe (64 per cent each); one in three consumers had suffered

online customer service forms that had insufficient space to type their

request (35.2 per cent); and 31.5 per cent were regularly annoyed by the

unprofessional style of responses that they receive.

Jeffries added, “Significantly, our research highlights that it isn’t just

the speed of the response that matters to consumers – it’s how quickly they

receive the right information.”

As the UK’s largest web host, Fasthosts offers a comprehensive range of web

solutions including domain name registrations, email solutions (including

mobile email services), shared web hosting, dedicated servers, online

payment services, reseller web hosting and feature-rich broadband packages.

For more information on Fasthosts, see the website at www.fasthosts.co.uk