Despite the boom in the use of social media to contact businesses, the good old phone still remains the most important communication method for customers to contact businesses in the UK, with 56% of businesses citing it is as their most important channel. This was followed by email 50%, online form 28%, live chat 24%, SMS text 23% and Whatsapp 21%, according to a new survey by Moneypenny, the leading outsourced communications company.
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However customers are ditching letters and faxes as a way to contact businesses, as the survey showed that only 12% said their customers prefer using the fax and 16% said they their customers prefer letters.
The value of phone calls to businesses was clearly demonstrated as the survey also showed that 57% estimated that the average value of losing a call to a competitor, from a customer who was ready to buy, was more than £1,000. Of these, 18% estimated the average value was between £1,001 and £1,500, while 17% of businesses estimated the potential loss to be £1,501-£2000 and 11% believed it was even higher at between £2,001 and £3,000.
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Commenting on the survey findings, Joanna Swash, Global CEO of Moneypenny, said: “We commissioned this survey as we wanted to understand the changing landscape of communications between businesses and their customers and to understand the value of these different communication channels. This survey has proved what we’ve always known: that the phone call is still king, despite the rise in popularity of our new channels such as Whatsapp, live chat and social media.”
“And what’s more, calls are becoming more valuable to business as many customers choose to do easy transactions over the website or use live chat for more casual enquiries. When they’re ready to buy they are more likely to pick up the phone to get an answer straight away or schedule an appointment. We found that for a third of the businesses surveyed over half their calls were new business enquiries.”
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