Business in India loses revenues up to Rs 11,640 crore every year due to poor service as customers abandon transactions or end relationships when companies do not meet their expectations, a survey says.
“India loses Rs 11,640 crore ($2.46 billion) due to poor customer service every year in revenue due to inability to meet customer expectations,” a survey conducted by Greenfield Online said.
India pays a higher cost of poor customer service compared to New Zealand and Australia that were also part of the survey.
The three countries put together lose Rs 28,000 crore ($5.6 billion) in revenue, the survey sponsored by Genesys Telecom Labs, part of Alcatel-Lucent company, said.
“Businesses in India, Australia and New Zealand suffer significant losses every year due to poor customer service over the web, in the contact centre, or via mobile devices as consumers abandon transactions or end relationships when companies do not meet their expectations,” it added.
Of the over 1,500 people surveyed, the biggest complaint was about trying to reach through to the call centre, the survey found.
In India, 56 per cent consumers admitted to having ended a relationship due to poor customer service, while 50 per cent had an experience that made them more likely to do so in the past year, the survey said.
“Indian customer service has a long way to go vis-a-vis developed countries. Mobile and internet will be the preferred contact points for Indian customers and companies should invest in high-end technology to stop customer churn to competitors,” Genesys Telecom Labs India Managing Director Shamsheer Ahmed said.
Indian customers felt annoyed by the inability to reach a human agent to answer a query or agents being poorly trained, Greenfield Online said.
Having to repeat information every time their call was forwarded to another department, long wait times to talk to a customer service executive and working with agents who were not authorised to make decisions also annoyed them the most.
For transactions abandoned due to poor customer service, an identical number (62 per cent) turned to a competitor, and 38 per cent of transactions were completely abandoned and lost to all companies, Greenfield Online said.
