Holiday Extras is the UK’s Top Call Centre for Customer Service in the Entertainment, Leisure & Travel Sector
London, UK, 09 October 2008
Holiday Extras is the strongest performing call centre in the Entertainment, leisure & travel sector
Entertainment, leisure & travel sector performs best for ease of use and reliability
96% of call centre enquiries resolved first-time in this sector
Holiday Extras is the UK’s best performing entertainment, leisure & travel sector call centre, according to the latest research from the Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service, conducted by independent market research company GfK NOP. Holiday Extras achieved a score of 85%, against an industry average of 82% for the entertainment, leisure & travel sector as a whole, in the UK’s biggest ever call centre benchmarking exercise.
The study was commissioned by the UK’s Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service, a programme organised by Call Centre Focus magazine, to raise customer service standards in the call centre industry. The research consisted of 20,000 mystery shopper calls to 50 of the UK’s leading call centres, across five sectors – retail, financial services & insurance, telecoms & utilities, public sector and entertainment, leisure & travel.
Each call centre was rated using over 50 criteria across five key areas of service - timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalised service – and awarded a Customer Service rating in percentage terms.
Call centres in the entertainment, leisure & travel sector delivered world-class service for ease of use, achieving a score of 92% and reliability, where they scored 89%. An impressive 95% of callers to this sector got through on their first attempt and 96% of enquiries were resolved in the initial call.
The highest performing sectors in the study were retail and financial services & insurance with scores of 87% and 86% respectively (see Table 1).
Table 1: Overall Top 50 Call Centre scores by Sector
Overall 83%
1. Retail 87%
2. Financial services & insurance 86%
3. Entertainment, leisure & travel 82%
4. Telecoms & utilities 82%
5. Public sector 78%
Overall, the benchmark study showed that all Top 50 Call Centres are getting the basics right: 93% of customers got through to the call centres on their first attempt and a staggering 96% of customer enquiries were resolved by the initial call. In addition, 85% of callers were either satisfied or extremely satisfied with their call experience, 76% said they were likely or extremely likely to recommend the organisation and 71% said they were likely to start or continue to use the organisation.
Claudia Hathway, Editor of Call Centre Focus, commented:
“This benchmarking survey represents a landmark for the call centre industry, with 50 of the UK’s top call centres prepared to put their reputations on the line in order to raise service standards for their customers. We would like to congratulate Holiday Extras for their excellent performance, and indeed all of the Top 50, for such high achievements. We hope this initiative will inspire other call centres to improve their levels of customer service to reach the standards set by our Top 50 members and we are grateful to Siemens for their enthusiastic sponsorship and support of the programme and its aims.
“The results show that many organisations are already delivering a world-class service to their customers. However, there is still room for improvement, particularly in the area of personalised service. By investing in the frontline employees who provide call centre service, organisations have an opportunity to differentiate their performance and increase customer long-term loyalty.”
Entertainment, leisure and travel organisations who took part in the Top 50 Call Centre initiative include: Emirates, Eurostar, Haven, Holiday Extras, LEGO, National Express, National Rail, Neilson, P&O Ferries, Premier Inn, Sky, Thomas Cook and Virgin Atlantic.
