UK companies failing at multi-channel customer experience

The UK is lagging behind other countries in making it easy for customers to interact with large organisations, according to research by Avaya and Davies Hickman Partners.

The companies polled 8,000 consumers across the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, the UAE. 73% of Brits have expressed frustration at how difficult it is, when interacting with an organisation, to switch from one means of communication to another without having to start the process over again. This is an increase in dissatisfaction of 11% since 2015 and it outpaces the frustration felt by global consumers.

Retail, meanwhile, is faring pretty well here. 18% of global consumers said supermarkets and online retailers most exceeded their customer service expectations, meaning it lost out only to banks/payment providers (29%). Marcus Hickman, Co-Founder at Davies Hickman Partners, notes that the research reveals a number of instances of UK and German consumers showing more conservatism in embracing the latest technology when compared with their global counterparts. “For example, two-thirds of UK consumers like the idea of using voice analytics or biometrics, with their voice acting like a fingerprint to authenticate them. But this lags behind international demand from nearly three-quarters of global consumers.”

“And perhaps most tellingly, the majority of UK consumers say they wouldn’t use video chat unless they had brushed their hair, so privacy and self-consciousness is clearly a consideration too,” he adds.