| By :
Martin Hofschroer
Britain's biggest banks ought to take advantage of social networking sites in order to improve customer service. An investigation by Virgin Media Business revealed that bank contact centres are becoming more efficient in relation to call times but more needs to be done to improve customer service in the online arena. The study found that banks treat their clients differently as they took at least half a minute longer to respond to ordinary consumers compared to business customers who enjoyed an average response time of 61 seconds. Virgin Media Business discovered that customer service levels differed greatly between banks as the quickest bank answered one call in just seven seconds while the slowest took five minutes and 33 seconds to reply to a call. Phil Stewart, customer service director at Virgin Media Business, said that Britain's biggest banks may have improved their contact centre experience but they were missing the opportunity to engage with their consumers online. He said: "Our study shows that this drive to improve customer service hasn't spread online. Despite more than five million people in the UK signing up to Twitter, we found that only one bank has started to engage with its customers on the site." Mr Stewart went onto say that an increasing number of British people are becoming internet savvy and are expecting their banks to be able to respond to their complaints and queries online. "Whether you like it or not, social networking sites seem to be becoming the new sounding board for complaints about companies," he added. Mr Stewart pointed out that the UK's high street banks are being tweeted on average around 180 times a day so it is the responsibility of the financial institutions to rise to the challenge of providing better online customer service. Banks will need to be able to provide a quick online reply as 55 per cent of British consumers expect a response to a complaint via the internet within 24 hours. "Smart organisations are beginning to realise that a call centre isn't the only way to provide customer service. Customers now want to get in touch with businesses via email, Instant Messaging and social networking sites too," added Mr Stewart. Mr Stewart told banks to adopt a multi-channel approach in order to improve their customer service and this will require investment in the appropriate technology and employee training. Research by the Institute of Customer Service revealed that almost a tenth of British people expect a business to have a presence on Twitter.
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