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Telcos fail at customer service
Mon, 24th Jan 2011
FYI, this story is more than a year old

New Zealand’s banks are kicking the stuffing out of telecommunications companies in the customer service department, the results of a new survey has shown.

The Colmar Brunton survey revealed that one-third of Kiwi respondents said they’ve had a good experience when dealing with their bank in the past 12 months (Air New Zealand also ranked highly).

One in five reported a negative experience when dealing with their telco and phone companies contribute to one-third of all bad customer experiences.

Pointing out the slightly obvious, researcher Dick Brunton said the results show that companies who investing in customer-facing staff and telephone service centres will win customers and retain business.

“Consumers are telling us that they feel businesses are lying to them,” said Brunton. “Firms like the telcos are paying for expensive advertising which tells consumers how much they’re valued and loved. But when a customer tries to get some service through an actual person at a call centre, the person they’re speaking to clearly doesn’t give a damn about them.”

Here’s the survey’s top ten list of Kiwi companies when it comes to quality good customer service:

  1. ASB
  2. Air New Zealand
  3. Kiwibank
  4. Westpac
  5. BNZ
  6. National Bank
  7. New World
  8. ANZ
  9. TSB
  10. Vodafone
Brunton added that the personal customer experience in New Zealand has improved in the past five years, mainly due to a reduction in negative customer experiences to 59% from 72% in 2006 (the last time the survey was conducted).

So why aren’t our telecommunications companies ranking higher? We’ve dropped 10th place 'winner' Vodafone a line.

Update: Vodafone has come back to us, saying it's intent on claiming the top spot and given a few examples of how.