IN FIGURES. The French have a (big) problem with their customer service

Complicated, slow, unreachable... and not really in progress: between the services, clients and consumers, it is far from great love. Deciphering, in six graphs.

"Please be patient, we will respond to your call" would be the phrase most hated the French ? The most often heard, in any case, since 98% of our fellow citizens have already faced a long waiting time too long during their involvement with the companies. It is their main criticism of their slowness, but the list of "abuse of customers" is far to stop there. Worse, she lies...

It is a fact: customers make fire of any wood when it comes to getting an answer or a solution to their problems. On average, according to the barometer "the French and The services" of the firm the Academy of the Service, they use the 1.3 mode of communication different per application.

But, if it is true that companies are much deployed recently on social networks, or in mobile applications, these tools are still little used by their clients, who their prefer the traditional e-mail and phone. Importantly, these same customers are very critical about the effectiveness of their interlocutors: 99% have already had a bad experience with a customer service, most of the time is too long or too complicated to join, and little more diligent when responding...

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What emerges from this "list" of channels of communication the most satisfactory? Consumers are first and foremost supporters of the least effort (good performance of the click to call and chat), immediacy (hence the disaffection of the mail) and most importantly direct interaction with the interlocutor, by live chat, phone, and more face-to-face.

according To the annual barometer of the Academy of The Service, it is now the e-commerce business that delivers the best quality of service to French consumers. He who has the most customers very satisfied (1 out of 5, almost twice as much as the actors of the insurance or the car).

Another useful: services, clients are more beautiful than they are. On average, employees in contact with customers and feel the satisfaction rate of their clients is 88%. When customers are not satisfied as to 70%...

In the banking sector, it is downright self-deception: 100% satisfaction estimated, whereas in reality the figure is 63%. The only sector where this proportion is reversed? The e-commerce, where the customer service representatives give a satisfaction rate of 67%... 10% below that of their customers.

Most of the active sites (164 200 according to the last count of the Fevad (up 14%), more customers (34.7 million French buy online, almost 1 million better than a year earlier)... and less, a lot less ways for them to contact the dealers.

This is the conclusion of the barometer is "Open to Dialog", in which Teletech International has audited 441 e-tailers French. Balance sheet: on Twitter, Facebook, by e-mail or by phone (more often through a premium rate number...), in short, regardless of the mode of relationship, it seems that the offers of services, clients are well hidden...

according to the annual survey on the services customers of the polling institute BVA, the French consider as acceptable a waiting time of 2 to 4 minutes on the phone, 24 hours for a response by e-mail, an hour on the social networks.

If one compares with the figures of Teletech International a year earlier (response in less than 2 minutes on the phone, 20 hours, either by e-mail and 1 hour on social networks), the conclusion is edifying: out of Facebook, the customer services e-traders are (much) less reactive in 2014 than in 2015. And the (very) poor performance in net increase: only 18% of the sites studied by Teletech International put more than 30 hours to reply to an e-mail, they are now 45%...