New research from Consumer Intelligence reveals that poor standards of service at motor insurance call centres are affecting sales.
While a good call centre can increase conversion rates by more than 20%, below average call centres could be losing up to 30% of new business, thereby resulting in a divide of 50% between the performance of the best and worst call centres.
Ian Hughes, managing director of Consumer Intelligence, said: “A poor call centre experience dramatically decreases a consumer's propensity to buy, even if the insurer has a cheaper price. The biggest bugbear consumers had was with foreign call centres, not for xenophobic reasons but because they simply could not understand the person at the other end of the phone and justifiably didn't feel confident in the supplier.”
He added: “The research proves conclusively that while price is the leading indicator of people's propensity to buy insurance, good processes and a well trained agent can make all the difference. Consumers that use the phone to buy insurance are less price sensitive and more service orientated. If a consumer's experience falls short of their expectation – on either price or service — then they invariably buy elsewhere. Worse still, they tend to remove those companies from their short list of suppliers. In reality, this means a poor call centre is not just hurting your present sales but also your future ones!”
Despite the growing popularity of e-commerce, 50% of consumers continue to prefer the telephone.
