Riverwoods, IL, August 7, 2006
– Discover
® Card today released the
results of its Customer Service Survey, which
revealed new insights into how consumers use customer
service, and how they rate the quality of customer
service across industries. The top survey findings
revealed that:
- Consumers want fast
and effective response by phone: Reaching
knowledgeable customer service representatives
is “extremely important” to 65 percent of respondents,
followed closely on the heels (64%) of the ease
of reaching a “live” person on the phone, and
resolving their issues in a single phone call
(61%).
- Don't like being stuck
on hold: The longer consumers have to wait
on the phone for a customer service representative,
the more likely they are to consider it unreasonable.
The survey revealed that most consumers, or 65
percent, consider a wait time “reasonable” as
long as it is less than two minutes. Nearly half,
or 48 percent, find wait times longer than two
minutes unreasonable. When wait times are over
three minutes, 80 percent find it unreasonable.
Only 26 percent of those surveyed recall connecting
with a representative in less than 60 seconds.
- Telephone
reigns supreme. Consumers overwhelmingly (73%)
prefer to contact customer service using a toll-free
number. Only 16 percent prefer to use e-mail,
9 percent prefer using online forms and 2 percent
prefer online instant messaging.
- Age
and gender matter. Women are more demanding
about the quality of customer service they receive
than men, according to a higher percentage of
women defining customer service attributes as
“extremely important” across all sixteen categories
evaluated. Additionally, 18-34 year old respondents
were the most demanding age group across half
of the categories that were surveyed.
- Location,
location, location. Consumers living in the
Southwest and Midwest are more particular about
the quality of customer service they receive than
those in the Northeast and West, especially when
it comes to connecting with a live representative
in less than a minute, having their issue resolved
promptly and whether the representative seemed
to care about them.
- Consumers
split on how they feel. When it comes to their
feelings about contacting customer service in
general, consumers tend to be polarized. Over
half, or 56 percent, said they don't mind contacting
customer service at all or very much; however,
44 percent of respondents dislike it -- with a
quarter of this group saying they don't like it
at all.
"Providing a product consumers
want and the quality customer service they expect
is our top priority," said Keith Heckel, Senior
Vice President of Cardmember Services at Discover
Financial Services. "Whether interacting with
Discover Card by phone or online, Cardmembers
will enjoy a high quality experience that sets
the standard for how they interact with other
companies. Since becoming the first company to
introduce 24/7 live customer service in 1986,
we have continued to introduce new technologies
and practices to constantly improve the customer
experience."
Discover Card's customer
service support has been designed to put Cardmembers
first, anticipating and caring for their needs
by providing top-notch customer service any time,
day or night. Discover Card's customer service
representatives boast the longest tenure in the
industry and are measured on their ability to
effectively resolve customer needs. Nearly every
inquiry to Discover's cardmember service team,
which handles some 80 million calls every year,
is resolved in a single phone call.
Discover
Card consistently ranks high in third-party assessments
of credit-card customer service organizations,
having won the Brand Keys Loyalty Award in the
credit card category for the past nine consecutive
years.
Banks and Financial Services
Rank High in Customer Service Quality, While Tech
Support Service Lags A breakdown
of customer service quality across different industries
revealed that banks and financial services routinely
provided the best customer service, while consumers
were least satisfied with service they receive
from technical support. Some key findings include:
- Forty percent of consumers were “extremely
satisfied” by the overall telephone customer service
provided by banks and financial services companies,
followed by cell phone companies (29 percent),
cable/satellite TV companies (28 percent) and
credit card companies (26 percent).
- By
industry, the average waiting time to speak with
a customer service representative was shortest
for banks and financial services companies, at
1.28 minutes, and longest for tech support, at
2.12 minutes. Credit card companies recorded
the second shortest wait time at 1.79 minutes,
followed by cell phones companies (1.81), cable/satellite
TV providers (1.89) and Internet Service Providers
(1.94)
- Forty-four percent of consumers
were “extremely satisfied” with banks and financial
services companies when it came to resolving customer
inquiries in a single phone call, followed by
Internet Service Providers (35 percent), cable/satellite
TV companies and credit card companies (both 34
percent) and cell phone companies (33 percent).
Tech support ranked lowest at 26 percent.
About
the Discover Card Customer Service Survey
For Discover Card's Customer Service
Survey, an online survey was conducted with a
total of 2,000 nationally-representative adults
(947 males and 1053 females). The research was
conducted from April 12-19, 2006 by Creative &
Response Research Services, Inc.
About
Discover Financial Services LLC
Discover Financial Services LLC, a business
unit of Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), operates the
Discover Card with more than 50 million Cardmembers,
and the Discover Network with more than 4 million
merchant and cash access locations. Discover
Financial Services also operates the PULSE ATM/debit
network, which serves over 4,200 financial institutions
and includes almost 250,000 ATMs and approximately
3.4 million POS terminals. For more information,
visit
www.discovercard.com,
www.discovernetwork.com
or
www.pulse-eft.com.
# # #
Media
Contact: Mai Lee Ua
Public Relations
(224) 405-3082
maileeua@discoverfinancial.com