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, the company said.
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 outsourced communications company.
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.
The survey also showed that calls are delivering new business, as the majority of companies (35%) said that over half of the calls they receive in a month are new sales or enquiries.
Moneypenny is the world´s outsourced communications provider, delivering telephone answering, live chat, switchboard and multichannel customer services. Moneypenny works with businesses of all shapes and sizes, from sole traders right up to multinational corporations.
