Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

In a recent telephone survey conducted by Corizon it was revealed that Scots, Men and the Under-30s were the most likely groups to use offensive language while speaking to a contact center representative.


The study estimates that Scots are the worst offenders (15 percent). The Welsh emerged as the most likely to end a call due to frustration (49 percent). The actual survey was conducted during August 2009 along with YouGuv and it included more than 90 contact center managers and 2,100 consumers within its ambit.

The core purpose of the survey was to estimate whether the technology deployed in modern day call centers were abetting frustration among consumers and agents.

The survey also threw some light on how consumers from diverse regional, gender and age groups behaved in typical conversations. As per data collated under the survey, Londoners were only second to the Scots when it came to using offensive language (12 percent). The Welsh were most likely to end a call without resolving the query while in conversation with an agent (51 percent) followed by Easterners (49 percent).

Midlanders and Southerners were most likely to end the call before a customer service representative even comes to the line (61 percent each). While more men were in the docks for using offensive language (12 percent to the women’s 7 percent); women were also more likely to end the call before speaking to an agent (60 percent to men’s 57 percent). In age groups, the 18-30 year olds were deemed as the most likely to engage in inappropriate conversation.

There were multiple points of frustration with call center executives at both ends of the spectrum, the survey revealed. The more the number of software applications required to be used by an agent to answer customer queries, the higher the level of frustration for consumers. Almost 75 percent of contact center managers polled reported that their agents require at least five unique software applications in a standard working day to resolve customer queries. On some days this number could be as high as 18. Thirty percent of polled contact center managers affirmed that the issue had worsened recently. A massive 83 percent of surveyed consumers testified that their major frustration was with long waiting times.

In a release, Emma Chablo, marketing director for Corizon, said “Consumers might be interested to know that agents find lengthy calls just as annoying, and a lot of the problem is down to the technology they have at their disposal. There’s no doubt about it: fewer software applications equal happier agents and happier – and more polite – customers.”