TOP 50: F&C TOPS POLL OF TOP UK CALL CENTRES

Global asset managers F&C Investments achieved the highest overall score in the UK’s biggest ever call centre benchmarking exercise, conducted by independent market research company GfK Mystery Shopping.

The study was commissioned by the UK’s Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service, a programme organised by Call Centre Focus magazine, to raise customer service standards in the call centre industry. Each call centre was rated using over 50 criteria across five key areas of service - timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalised service – and awarded a Customer Service rating in percentage terms.

As part of the initiative to identify the best performers and to improve the perception of call centres amongst the general public, GfK made 17,000 mystery shopping enquiries to over fifty of the UK’s leading call centres, across five sectors – retail & distribution, financial services, telecoms & utilities, public sector and entertainment, leisure & travel.

The UK’s Top Ten Call Centres for Customer Service

1 F&C Investments 94.95%
2  Denplan 94.78%
3 First Direct 91.73%
4 Dyson 92.39%
5 Dignity Caring Funeral Services 91.04%
6 ING Direct 90.89%
7 Bourne Leisure 90.67%
8 National Savings & Investments    89.63%
9 Ufi learndirect 88.87%
10   Holiday Extras 88.86%

The strongest performing sectors were the financial services and entertainment, leisure & travel sectors; six financial services and two entertainment, leisure & travel call centres feature in the UK’s Top Ten Call Centres for Customer Service. F&C Investments topped the list with an impressive 94.95%, nudging ahead of Denplan, First Direct and Dyson. 

The top performing retailer was Dyson with a score of 92.39%, outperforming the sector’s average rating of 84%. Ufi learndirect was the leading public sector call centre and was included in the Top Ten, setting the standard in this sector, with a score of 88.74%, against the public sector average rating of 80%. In the entertainment, leisure & travel sector Bourne Leisure took the top spot with 90.67%, ahead of 2008 sector leader Holiday Extras who achieved 88.68%. United Utilities topped the telecoms & utilities sector with a score of 88.70%. Email communication was included in the benchmarking exercise this year and Boots performed best in this area with a score of 90%.  

Overall Top 50 scores

  Overall 83%
1 Financial Services 87%
2 Entertainment, Leisure & Travel    86%
3 Telecoms & Utilities 85%
4 Retail & Distribution 84%
5    Public Services 80%

The 50 criteria used to evaluate the call centres took into account all aspects of customer service, including time to get through to a customer service representative, queue management, automated IVR systems, politeness, knowledge and friendliness of call centre staff, as well as how quickly enquiries were resolved.

Overall, the benchmark study showed that all Top 50 Call Centres are getting the basics right: 96% of customers got through to the call centres on their first attempt compared to 93% in 2008.   In addition, 86% of callers were either satisfied or extremely satisfied with their call experience, 68% said they were likely or extremely likely to recommend the organisation and 70% said they were likely to start or continue to use the organisation.

The weakest results uncovered by the benchmarking exercise were for ‘personalised’ service covering a range of ‘softer’ skills such as friendliness, politeness and eagerness to help. The overall score for this category, at 66.43%, was significantly below the overall score of 84% for the Top 50 Call Centres.

Simon Thorpe, Programme Director, Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service, commented: “Customer service is becoming more important than ever as consumers are more careful about where and how they spend their money. Companies are realising that in order to retain customers during difficult financial periods customer service has to be first class. This benchmarking programme highlights 50 of the UK’s top call centres who are prepared to put their reputations on the line in order to raise service standards for their customers. We would like to congratulate F&C Investments for their excellent performance, and indeed all of the Top 50, for such high achievements. We hope this initiative will inspire other call centres to improve their levels of customer service to reach the standards set by our Top 50 members and we are grateful to Genesys and Noble Systems for their enthusiastic sponsorship and support of the programme and its aims.

“The results show that many organisations are already delivering a world-class service to their customers. However, there is still room for improvement, particularly in the area of personalised service. By investing in the frontline employees who provide call centre service, organisations have an opportunity to differentiate their performance and increase customer long-term loyalty.”

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