HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have this week said that people should now use social media or web chat, rather than call its telephone helplines, to get help quicker.
The suggestion has been made after it was revealed that HMRC only managed to answer half of the calls received in the first half of the year.
Lin Homer, the chief executive of HMRC, admitted that recent customer service levels had been “unacceptably poor”. She added that the service will “always struggle” to answer calls, suggesting that taxpayers should look for help through HMRC’s Twitter feed or web chats instead.
The chief executive went on to promote HMRC’s online services “We’ve introduced tweeting, we do web chats, we’re doing online. I think a good service will be giving people a range of ways to contact us”. It is claimed that a significant number of people will now be able to deal with their problems online.
In a study performed by NM Incite, it was found that telecommunication agencies who connect with customers through online mediums typically have considerable benefits- not just in the form of lower costs. Benefits also involved enhanced levels of customer satisfaction, richer differentiation and higher brand advocacy.
With obvious benefits of providing customer care digitally, what policies does your company have in place to handle out of hours enquiries or complaints? Are you using social media in its many different permutations to improve or enhance the customer experience?
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