Customer service can impact consumer perception of a brand and customer loyalty. With new technologies stepping in to automate customer care and deliver 24/7 services, what preferences do UK consumers have when it comes to customer support and help desk services? 

What features do UK consumers want in better customer service?

UK businesses understand that brand loyalty and customer satisfaction are intertwined. However, as customer demands evolve, companies need to keep up with consumer preferences to foster loyalty. Employing technology such as customer service tools can assist with building customer relationships. To fully leverage these solutions, SMEs must understand what consumers want and what platforms are the most appropriate for providing support to their customers.

We surveyed over 1,000 UK consumers who had used customer services, help desk services, or both to learn more about their experiences in this area. In the first of this two-part series, we examine what consumers think about these services to gain insights into how SMEs can improve in these areas. For clarity, when we use the term ‘customer service’ in this article it will apply to both help desk services and customer support services, even though there is a distinction between the two.

The full methodology is available at the end of the article. 

What is the difference between customer support services and help desk services?

Customer service is the provision of support to customers before, during, and after the purchase of a product or service. On the other hand, help desk services help a customer solve technical or IT issues.

What type of customer support do consumers prefer?

SMEs can provide customer support in different ways using multiple channels, such as phone, live chat, email, or social media. With the increasing availability of self-service capabilities, SMEs can provide tools such as chatbots or knowledge bases to allow customers to resolve their problems without speaking to a human agent.

Consumers still want to communicate with agents

Despite the availability of self-service features, our survey respondents strongly preferred support from human agents that delivered instant responses. Phone (42%) and live chat support with human agents on a website or using apps such as WhatsApp (39%) were the most popular first choice of support for consumers. Freeform emails followed in popularity, with 12% of respondents preferring to write their concerns for human agents to read.

Our respondents have little faith in social media as a first choice for customer service or in online forms that may limit their ability to explain their concerns. Self-service capabilities such as knowledge bases and chatbots received low votes too. 

Preferred first choice for customer service UK

What support channels exist to provide customer service?

The telephone is the most popular choice of support for customers, but newer technologies can provide alternative opportunities to engage with consumers. Here are some of the different channels SMEs can use.

  • Chatbots: software, sometimes powered by artificial intelligence (AI), that conducts automated online conversations with a customer to answer their questions. Chatbots are designed to simulate a natural interaction with a human being.
  • Knowledge bases: an online library or freqently asked questions (FAQs) page on a company’s website. Knowledge bases can be divided into topics to guide and clarify customer requests.
  • Live chat: software that enables customers to communicate directly with human agents on a website or app. The tools can run all day or can be set up to collect out-of-hours enquiries and then pick up live chat when agents begin their shifts.
  • Social networks: the use of messaging tools provided on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp as a channel for customers to communicate with companies through live chat or chatbots. 
  • Online forms: a form available on a company’s website that enables a conversation via an exchange of emails.

Consumers strongly prefer human voices ahead of synthetic ones

Customer service functions have increased investment in AI in the past two years. One of the uses of AI is to deliver automated responses to consumers who prefer to use phone calls.

Call centres can offer a menu of services that can be triggered by voice demands. Many of these calls are recorded with synthetic voices. However, do UK consumers prefer human voices over synthetic ones?

Who do consumers prefer to speak to in UK customer service

While 9% of respondents don’t care if the voices are synthetic or human, only 2% of respondents prefer a computer-generated voice over human voices. Additionally, we saw that among the majority (89%) who prefer human voices:

  • 64% of respondents have no preference regarding the gender of the voice 
  • 19% prefer female human voices 
  • 5% favour male human voices

Advantages and disadvantages of different customer service channels

While we have seen which support channels consumers prefer as their first choice of customer service, we also wanted to know what they considered to be the pros and cons of each channel.

Phone calls

Phone calls are the most popular channel among consumers. When asked to choose up to three advantages of this service channel:

  • 74% of respondents said phone calls allow them to explain themselves or ask more questions
  • 47% of respondents said they feel their issues can be solved more efficiently by phone
  • 39% like the immediacy of the response, as they said there is less delay in getting a solution to their issue compared with other channels

However, this immediacy did not ring true for all respondents. Often, customers have to wait to be attended to. When questioned about the disadvantages of phone calls:

  • 79% of respondents stated that being stuck in a queue is a downside of phone calls
  • 40% of respondents said that spending extra money to have an issue resolved on the phone if the call is not free is another negative point
  • 35% said that some human agents lack efficiency

Call centre software can help improve phone-based services by distributing incoming calls automatically and routing them to the appropriate customer service agents.

26% of consumers said that agents trying to sell them more than necessary is a drawback to phone calls. Not every call is an opportunity to upsell. Human agents should be careful choosing when to sell additional services. CRM tools can suggest personalised offerings that are most likely to interest consumers based on data such as their purchase history.

Live chat

Respondents highlighted the following advantages of the second most popular customer service option in our survey:

  • 52% of respondents like live chat because of its flexibility in terms of availability and hours
  • 47% appreciate being able to multi-task while having an issue resolved
  • 36% like that they can receive links and documentation instantly

However, there are also snags to live chat:

  • 54% expressed concern over unclear explanations or miscommunication that can get in the way of their conversations
  • 42% dislike that agents can ignore or skip questions more easily on live chat
  • 37% of respondents said the service provided can feel less personal on these channels
Even if some consumers want to multitask using live chat, agents should not lose track of the conversation. Using behaviour maps to track movements or integrating live chat with CRM to help pick up on delayed conversations can help resume stalled conversations. 

Written form

Whether submitted via an online form, a social media business account, or an email, written requests also have their perks and shortcomings. In terms of benefits:

  • 65% of respondents like this type of communication for customer service as it provides them with a paper trail or written proof
  • 41% appreciate that this non-instant form of customer service lets them multitask while making a request
  • 40% feel they can express themselves better in writing

On the flip side, time and uncertainty are the biggest concerns with this type of format:

  • 65% of respondents don't like having to wait for an answer
  • 56% are uncomfortable with not knowing if their request has been received or opened
  • 52% don’t like the risk of never getting an answer
Embrace agility: if consumers contact your customer service desk via email, ensure they receive an automated response acknowledging receipt of their query and an indication of how long the process to deal with it may take. Email management software can help businesses provide timely responses. 

Chatbots

Chatbots have huge potential in customer service. According to Gartner, chatbots will become the primary customer service channel for about a quarter of organisations by 2027. They can be integrated with multiple channels, are available 24/7, can respond in multiple languages and can provide non-biased interactions. 

When we asked our survey-takers about the advantages of this channel, we found that:

  • 58% of respondents appreciate the constant availability of chatbots
  • 36% like the fact that there’s no waiting time to get a solution for common issues
  • 28% of respondents also appreciate that since chatbots are not people, they can multitask while having a problem resolved by a bot. 

However, our survey shows there is still a long way to go before chatbots gain wholehearted acceptance. 20% of respondents failed to find an advantage for chatbots. When analysing the downsides of chatbots, more clarity is given as to the reason for this rejection:

  • 62% of respondents said chatbots can’t solve complex or specific issues
  • 51% felt that chatbots never understand their requests or needs
  • 50% considered that chatbots can generate frustration by being repetitive and running in circles
Chatbots should go beyond providing boxed responses and incorporate machine learning, NLP capabilities, and pre-defined terms tailored to each industry. These solutions are often found in Conversational AI software. More importantly, as not all customers embrace self-service, chatbots should be able to escalate complex cases to human agents.

Online documentation

For consumers who want quick self-service, with no interactions and the chance to resolve queries in their own time, online documentation provides those advantages:

  • 49% of respondents like not having to interact with anyone to resolve queries
  • 37% like that they can multitask while checking online documentation
  • 37% believe it’s faster to get an answer using online documentation

When it comes to the negatives, however:

  • 63% of respondents said online documentation is often limited to the most common issues, so their freedom to resolve their queries can be restricted
  • 37% of respondents don’t know how to look for the right content or question in online documentation
  • 31% said the documentation language is often too complex
Provide easy navigation and readable content. Knowledge bases and online documents can be treated as any other web content and should be user-friendly. Online documentation and knowledge bases can be optimised for SEO so that they are easier to search through and use terms that consumers use.

Benefits of providing better customer service

When companies get customer support right, they can benefit from their customers’ reactions. 36% of UK consumers recommended a brand to people around them after receiving a positive customer experience. Three in ten consumers said they had even stuck to a brand that gave good customer support when cheaper competition existed. 

the benefits of providing good customer service

Conversely, 24% had actively discouraged people from buying from a company that delivered poor customer service, while 40% stopped buying from a brand that had not provided them with good support. 

SMEs should track their customer support and provide alternatives

UK SMEs should understand consumer preferences when choosing solutions for their customer support. Consumers may like the autonomy of self-service capabilities but still prefer support from human agents that can deliver instant answers via the phone or live chat. 

Our survey results indicate that this is because customers want to be able to explain themselves. In addition, they appreciate the flexibility of live chats and the ability to track conversations that written communication provides. UK SMEs should try to find the means to cater for different customers and, for example, present alternative methods of contacting support via automated email responses. 

Additionally, seeing that good customer service can drive consumers to use and recommend brands more often, companies should regularly review and track their customer support processes. Analysing customer feedback collected via surveys or reputation management software can help companies identify issues and prioritise improvements. 

SMEs can leverage this feedback to understand consumer preferences and habits when developing local or global customer support strategies. In the second part of this series, we'll look at how expectations of customer service vary internationally.

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