SINGAPORE: A survey conducted by consumer watchdog CASE has found that seven in 10 consumers are unhappy with the service standards of call centre staff.

More than 1,000 respondents were interviewed in December 2011 for the customer satisfaction survey done in collaboration with Ngee Ann Polytechnic students.

The survey aims to assess the satisfaction level of customers towards banks and telecommunications providers.

Respondents must have made calls to call centres of banks and telcos or both in the six months before the survey.

More than 70 per cent of respondents said call centre staff did not have the knowledge to answer their queries or provide accurate and relevant information.

Only 8.4 per cent of respondents agreed that call centre staff were able to answer their inquiries.

CASE said this implies that call centre staff may not be equipped with the relevant skills or knowledge to provide adequate support or assistance to consumers.

Over half of the respondents said it took one call for them to reach the call centre staff, 46 per cent said they had to call twice or more to reach them.

On the attitude of call centre representatives, majority of the respondents did not think that the staff were courteous, friendly, professional, patient, responsive or attentive to their requirements.

On areas for improvements, over seven in 10 respondents said it is very important for call centres to work on improving call waiting time, staff's product knowledge and efficiency in solving problems.

CASE has urged call centres to introduce a call-back feature for dropped calls, and work on the lapses in their service.

CASE also found that about 79 per cent of respondents wanted call centres to operate at least 13 hours daily.

A check with seven companies revealed that six of them are already operating at least 14 hours daily.

CASE recommended that banks and telcos step up their publicity on the operating hours of their call centres.

- CNA/ck

Cheaper better faster.

Sigh!   Telling the truth about negative encounters can lead to Singaporeans being labelled as Complain kings and queens.     

half the time got language barrier

cannot understand the accent

and then they just read from script, not directly solving the problem

or the problem get taiji-ed around until u are sian of it and just let it go

There are down side in getting cheap labour.

All kinds of accent, filipino, indian, PRC, myanmmar   . . . . .

They might be cheaper but when you think about it, callers are more likely to have to make MULTIPLE calls to eventually get their problem resolved due to language barriers etc, so the company using the foreign call centres have to pay for more calls answered.

It is irritating and they do have to follow a script.

Mel - 

ALL OUR OPERATORS ARE BUSY, PLEASE HOLD, WE WILL ATTEND TO YOU SHORTLY. YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US.

ALL OUR OPERATORS ARE BUSY, PLEASE HOLD, WE WILL ATTEND TO YOU SHORTLY. YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US.

ALL OUR OPERATORS ARE BUSY, PLEASE HOLD, WE WILL ATTEND TO YOU SHORTLY. YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US.

ALL OUR OPERATORS ARE BUSY, PLEASE HOLD, WE WILL ATTEND TO YOU SHORTLY. YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US.

The reality is that, there is no one there.

i got good service from Apple....in UK

i got good service from American Express Travel.....in Australia

Really pekcek with call centre... I have no problem with bank de call centre but the telcos de super jialat...

be it M1, sinktel or starfug, all sibei jialat...

Filipinos and India Indians have the worst forms of incomprehensible spoken English in the world....and they dominate call centres services around the world What irony.

anyone watch Outsourced?