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By Lisa Burroughes, 9 December 1999 00:15

NEWS Call centre customers are being kept hanging on the phone for too long, according to a survey out this week by Benchmark Research, and that's leading to high levels of dissatisfaction. The report found that only 20 per cent of calls are answered within 30 seconds and nearly a quarter are waiting over the industry standard of two minutes - with many having to wait up to 20 minutes. In addition, the research discovered that customer confusion about what call rates apply for 0800, 0845 or 0870 numbers, has led to 63 per cent of those questioned claiming they dislike modern call centres. Piers Armstrong, project director at Benchmark Research said: "Companies need to provide more information to the customer if they are to increase satisfaction. They should be told what the average waiting time in the centre is, what the busiest periods are and, more importantly, the price of the call should be clearly indicated." But the answer isn't increased use of IT because the research also found that 29 per cent don't like using the Interactive Voice Routing (IVR) technology that is typically used to reduce build up of calls to the centre. CTI provider, Cincom, commissioned the survey, and according to marketing manageer, Gavin Bradbury, "People don't like only talking to technology, they don't like being passed around and they don't like being kept waiting." He added that there is a delicate balance in using IVR for cost saving and using extra agents and in order to resolve the problem call centres, "need to put more investment into the agents - technology can help but call centres are all about people".