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 93.52%
4 Dyson 92.39%
5 Dignity Caring Funeral Services 91.04%
6 ING Direct 90.98%
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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Notes to Editors

About Top 50 Call Centres

The Top 50 Call Centre initiative is a benchmarking exercise, in partnership with GfK NOP, a leading independent market research organisation, and sponsored by Genesys & Noble Systems. Its aims is to help call centres find out how the general public thinks they are performing through over 17,000 mystery shopping enquiries, half of these from current customers of each independent call centre.

Calls will be rated for customer service criteria identified by the customers themselves including timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalisation. The calls will reflect different enquiry types from simple requests to more complex enquiries, truly reflecting the range of calls the call centre receives. They will take place at different times of day, during peak and non peak periods, including weekends.

Research methodology

Over 17,000 mystery shopping enquiries were made . The mystery shopping exercise is based on a comprehensive analysis of call centre service in five key areas derived from extensive focus group research with actual customers. The report will be published in October 2009.

Calls were split across customer and non-customer assessor profiles and across simple and more complex enquiries. Assessors were profiled as closely as possible to the organisation they were calling and used their real background, contact details to maximise their credibility. Where appropriate to the scenario in question, they had policy numbers; customer reference numbers etc. to hand in case they were asked for these to resolve their enquiry.

Scenarios were constructed so as to be comparable across all organisations and sectors involved. Examples are shown below:
Entertainment, leisure & travel Flight, holiday and accommodation quotes and enquiries, fares and schedules, facilities for children / disabled customers / elderly customers, parking, changing dates,

Financial services Requests for balances / information on recent transactions / standing orders, product / service enquiries, excess charges, insurance quotes (including non-standard risk profiles), checking policy details, changing policy details

Public sector Enquiries about services (such as libraries, recycling, leisure facilities, parking, social housing), costs of services, appointment booking, enquiries about benefits / taxes

Retail & distribution Store card enquiries, opening times, appointment booking, enquiries about refund processes, catalogue ordering, product detail enquiries and parcel deliveries

Telecoms & utilities Enquiries about product and tariff packages / add-ons, price objections, payment and balance enquiries

Trained mystery shoppers were used for the calling and restrictions were placed on the number of calls made by individual assessors. On the ‘customer’ scenarios and those where contact details may be requested, shoppers were limited to no more than 1 call per organisation.

Calls were made between May and August 2009.


About Call Centre Focus

Call Centre Focus is the UK’s leading magazine covering all aspects of the call centre industry and customer service in general. Articles give practical advice and tips on how to ensure successful and effective customer contact and the regularly updated website (www.callcentre.co.uk) ensures that readers are kept abreast of the very latest market news. In short, it is a one-stop-shop for call centre professionals everywhere.

About Genesys

Genesys, a product division of Alcatel-Lucent’s Application Software Group, provides Enterprise software that enable best-in-class customer service. Genesys software directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day for 4,000 companies and government agencies in 80 countries. These companies and agencies can leverage their entire organization, from the contact centre to the back office, to improve the overall customer experience. As a result, Genesys helps stop customer frustration, drive efficiency, and accelerate business innovation.

About Noble Systems

Noble Systems is a global leader in contact centre technology, delivering the industry’s most comprehensive and affordable solutions to enhance the performance and management of your contact centres. Noble Systems provides solutions that allow companies to communicate more effectively with their customers via multiple channels, including inbound/outbound/blended voice, email, fax and web.

Media contacts
For more information please contact:
Kerry Davis/Claire Barber
Wildfire PR
T: 0208 339 4420
E: Top50@wildfirepr.co.uk