Aon recently undertook a survey of businesses in the UK to find out their opinions on the increasing number of complaints for compensation. The survey revealed that over 60% of companies questioned had seen a general increase in the number of claims and believed that their business activities had been reduced because of the burden of dealing with complaints.
Many of the companies questioned believe that the Government should do something about the increasing problems, but other companies are finding their own way, for example by moving their operations offshore.
Our View
Whilst the general public have become more aware over the last few years and customer service now means a lot more, companies that receive complaints must get them for a reason.
We have found that with margins being squeezed every day, customer service suffers. The introduction of call centres both in the UK and overseas has also added to the problems. Every day we are told that turnaround time is at least 15 working days and that companies do not have enough staff. This is no excuse for these companies but their hands are tied. If they got more staff their prices would increase and they would not be able to compete with rivals.
The general public need to think about what they want - the cheapest or good customer service. These days, you can rarely have both.