One in three customer emails ignored

British companies fail to respond to email

4 May 2007 11:37 GMT / By Ryan Haynes

It has been found that telcos are the worst offenders when it comes to ignoring customer emails, totalling a 42 percent response rate.

eGain tested 125 major UK companies on response times as well as quality of information through email. Staff actively contacted businesses requesting information on high value products and services through the customer contact pages on websites.

The study found that only 36% responded to customer emails within 24 hours, while 16% managed to reply within 1 hour.

The retail sector was found to be the best overall performer with a 70% response rate, though they only managed to achieve 49% for quality replies.

The response was so slack that just 19% of companies provided an accurate response to queries, and only 18% sent an acknowledgement of the email.

In a world of Web 2.0 and businesses pushing its customers online for details and information, the lack of response through its enquiry sections does not lend itself to supportive customer relations.

However, the experiences eGain found during this experiment was over the Christmas period - perhaps not an ideal time to check efficiency of online customer relations.