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Consumers reveal their top business grumbles

Published On 22 May 2007 at 09:01:29

The owners of UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to make sure their businesses have excellent channels of consumer communication if they hope to be successful, a new study has revealed.

The National Consumer Council (NCC) carried out research to find what consumers considered the most frustrating things when dealing with SMEs.

Nearly half (46 per cent) of the consumers questioned said that constantly being left on hold when phoning a businesses was what annoyed them the most.

Voice-activated phone systems, call-centres and condescending attitudes from staff were also found to be consumer annoyances.

In fact, the study revealed the majority of people (71 per cent) think that SME bosses are out of touch with the consumer experience when they deal with their company.

"Companies often live or die by the quality of their customer service - so it's astonishing to see how many still haven't got the basics right," explained Philip Cullum, the NCC's deputy chief executive.

"The days of British consumers taking what they're given and suffering in silence are over. Consumer power is now a real force for business to reckon with."

Recent figures from Interactive Media in Retail Group show that consumers are increasingly turning to the online world to do their shopping - internet retail sales in the UK are set to hit the £100 billion mark within the year.

 

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