Web customer service leaves Irish eyes smiling

Consumers prefer dealing with customer sevice over the web rather than call centres – well, Irish consumers do at least.

A Computer Associates (CA)-commissioned survey of Irish consumers carried out by Vanson Bourne found that convenience and cost of online customer service delivery was favoured by 90 percent of respondents while consumers believe that call centres deliver a poor level of service quality and performance.

When comparing call centre against online customer service, online scored more favourably in terms of cost (90 percent), convenience (88 percent), navigation speed (81 percent), providing personal details only once (72 percent) and reliability (59 percent).

"There are now a large number of people who are using online as their sole means of interacting with an organisation,” says Frank Kennedy, country manager for CA Ireland. “Consumers now view call centres as a premium service and have high service level expectations associated with them, but call centres are failing to raise the bar.”

Overall, 86 percent of consumers say they interact solely online with at least one provider from the worlds of banking, entertainment, insurance, telecoms or government.

Some 60 percent of people are interacting solely online with their banks and 32 percent with their credit card company, while in the telco market, 58 per ent of consumers are interacting with online with their fixed or mobile provider.