Three quarters of Britons think customer service is poor

Sixty-seven percent of the 2,488 18- to 65-year-olds asked in the survey believed that America’s customer service could teach the UK how to set the standard, and 25% felt that European customer service could set an example.

All respondents were asked their biggest customer service bugbears with robotic/scripted responses from customer service agents the worst ( 82%) followed by conflicting advice from different agents ( 80%) and foreign call centres/agents that are hard to understand ( 77%).

In terms of sectors, the travel industry was deemed the worst followed by leisure & hospitality and retail.

Matt West, CMO at Feefo, said: “Considering how much emphasis UK businesses now place on customer service, the fact that UK service levels don’t appear to be hitting the mark is likely concerning many companies. It should encourage us to ask the question of whether we are doing enough to collect and understand feedback from our customers, listen to what they have to say and make effective changes based on this.”