05
November
2014
|
13:44
Europe/London

BT Business research highlights the real cost of missed business calls

Summary

Customers will only try to call a maximum of twice before taking their business elsewhere, with a fifth estimating they would call just once, according to the latest research from BT Business.

Customers will only try to call a maximum of twice before taking their business elsewhere, with a fifth estimating they would call just once, according to the latest research from BT Business1.

The research, which looked at people’s attitudes to making and receiving calls, asked a range of questions, including estimating the cost of missing just one customer call.

The average answer was approximately £1,200 per call. This means the UK’s small and medium sized businesses could be losing out on a combined figure of around £90m2 by not being available to speak to potential customers.

When asked to estimate the cost of being uncontactable by phone for a full 24 hours, decision makers put the figure far higher – on average over £9,000, and in some cases as high as £20,000.

Danny Longbottom, managing director, UK SME, BT Business, said: “We already know from speaking to our customers that missed calls mean missed business. Companies, especially SMEs, are becoming increasingly mobile – 77 per cent offer flexible working and 45 per cent hot-desking, according to the research – so getting calls to the right person is potentially more difficult.

“No one cares about how a call is routed, especially the customer – they just want to get to speak to the right person. That’s why we’re developing innovative ways to solve the challenges around mobile working, like BT One Phone and BT Cloud Voice, making them accessible to businesses of all sizes.”

The findings of the research confirm this need. Two-thirds of decision makers agreed that the ability to work from anywhere with the same functionality on mobiles as on desk phones would help their organisation to be more productive.

When coupled with the statistic that four fifths of those questioned said that they spend some time out of the office, with more than half using three different devices to communicate while at work, the need for agile call routing to avoid lost business becomes clear.

Furthermore, demand for agile call management is only likely to accelerate as customers’ expectations grow. 90 per cent of respondents agree that their clients are increasingly demanding faster responses and more for their money – for businesses to compete, thrive and grow they will need to constantly and quickly adapt to these emerging trends.

For further details about BT One Phone and BT Cloud Voice, visit: www.business.bt.com/ip-communications/  

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Notes to editors

1. BT Business research, conducted by Populus Research amongst 505 IT decision makers and 1010 business telecoms end-users between March 28, 2014 and April 13, 2014. All respondents were at companies with between 20 and 249 employees.

2.

No.of employees

No. businesses

BIS 2013

Average cost of missed call (survey data)

Total cost across all businesses of missing one customer call

20-49

63,400

£576

£36,518,400

50-99

19,615

£1801

£35,326,615

100-249

10,225

£1734

£17,730,150

-

-

-

£89,575,165