Hotels rank among the best businesses in Britain when it comes to their phone manner, new research has revealed.
The study of 1,000 consumers, conducted on behalf of PH Media Group, discovered 50 per cent are satisfied with the way the hospitality industry handles their calls, putting it behind only dentistry (53 per cent) in terms of Britain’s best performing.
Hotels’ satisfaction rating is also much higher than the average for all businesses, which came out at just 23 per cent.
Doing a good job
“These results clearly reflect well on the hospitality industry and shows hotels are doing a good job of handling customer phone calls in a professional and efficient manner,” said Mark Williamson, Sales and Marketing Director, PH Media Group.
“But even though 50 per cent of customers are pleased with the way their calls are being handled, there remains a significant proportion of callers who could have generated a negative perception through bad caller experience.
“There is perhaps a tendency among companies to focus their attention and budgets on visual marketing and internet presence but the telephone remains a crucial aspect of branding, marketing and sales.”
Achieving best practice
Hotels scored particularly well in the North West, where 57 per cent of respondents were satisfied, while London (49 per cent), Wales (48 per cent) and East Anglia (47 per cent) all dipped below 50 per cent.
“The fluctuations across different genders and regions show not all customers feel their needs are being met, so there is an onus on businesses to address this by improving overall caller experience,” added Williamson.
“Responding to calls quicker or establishing a set practice for answering the phone both represent a good start but true best practice can be achieved by implementing tools such as on-hold marketing – bespoke voice and music messages that are played on hold – in order to establish top-class service and a congruent brand across all touchpoints with customers.”
About PH Media Group
London-based PH Media Group is the world’s largest provider of audio branding services, with more than 20,000 clients in 39 countries worldwide.
PH Media’s core audio products include Audio Branding, On-Hold Marketing, Out-of-Hours Messaging and Auto Attendant Voicing. These services involve the creation of targeted marketing messages for businesses to play whenever telephone callers are put on hold or transferred, designed to reinforce brand values and increase sales.
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