Survey: 39% of companies do not respond to customers after working hours

According to the Latvian Customer Service Monitoring Survey conducted by Tele2 and SKDS, companies most often do not answer some customer questions because customers contact them outside working hours (29%), customer service staff are already communicating with other customers at that time (19%) and customer service staff have other non-customer service related tasks at the same time (11%).

 Compared to the 2021 survey, there has been a significant 38% increase in the number of entrepreneurs who say that the company does not answer customer queries because customers contact the company outside working hours.

"The Latvian Customer Service Monitor also found that 81% of businesses have no record of how many incoming customer enquiries they have failed to handle.

"Although the number of customers contacting companies via digital channels is growing year on year, the most popular way of contacting companies is still by phone. But no matter which channel a customer uses to contact a company, they want a fast and high quality service. 

Unfortunately, this is not always possible, as many companies do not keep records of incoming customer enquiries, and as a result, companies do not know, for example, how many and which customer enquiries they failed to answer on a given day," says Raivo Rost, Commercial Director at Tele2. 

"This is an issue that companies should definitely pay attention to because, according to our previous research, every second customer has turned to a competitor when they have not been able to contact the company. Nowadays, it also doesn't require investing in large and complex technological solutions, as many things are available via a mobile phone with a business rate plan connection."

Data from the Latvian Customer Service Monitor also shows that the number of customers asking questions to companies via digital channels (emails, social networks, etc.) has increased by more than 20% in the last two years. Businesses that use digital channels to communicate with their customers are most likely to answer all or almost all questions within 24 hours. This is the case for 46% of businesses, or almost one in two.