With the boom of social media, you might think that online communication has surpassed the more traditional methods of getting in touch with businesses – but you’d be mistaken.
New research from global communications provider, Moneypenny, has revealed that the humble phone is still the number one way for customers to contact businesses – despite the explosion of new communication methods – with more than half of UK companies (56%) citing it as their most important channel.
These results demonstrate that phone calls are becoming an even more valuable asset for businesses, as customers still seek human interaction when making purchases. Missing even just one call can lose you big business. In fact, calls are generating an enormous £304bn of new revenue to UK businesses every year, with a third of businesses reporting a single call as being worth in excess of £1000 – business that can’t afford to be missed.
So why are consumers still favouring the phone over other channels? With simple queries more often resolved using online channels, more complex needs and conversations are increasingly taking place over the phone. This trend is leading to a higher proportion of enquiries overall via the phone, with 45% of calls understood to be brand new enquiries – double the volume compared to 5 years ago.
Joanna Swash, Global CEO at Moneypenny, explains “Phone calls are especially important for businesses that have complex products that require more explanation than a website can provide, high-value services which have longer consideration cycles, or services where an urgent response or one-off requests are frequent, such as law firms or plumbers”.
What’s more, the impact of the smartphone is not to be underestimated. Whilst it’s widely reported that smartphones are driving down voice calls in the consumer world, it’s driving the opposite for business, with click-to-call from mobiles responsible for a huge shift in customers calling businesses directly instead of trying to find the answer online.
Summarising the findings, Joanna Swash comments, “This survey has proved what we’ve always known; the phone is still king, despite the rise in popularity of newer channels”.
If you’re looking to grow your business and increase revenue from new and existing customers in 2020, then you can download the full Value of a Missed Call report, here.
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