What do your existing customers mean to you?

As an existing medium sized business based in Brighton, we like speaking with new and existing customers and we have taken the stance to charge them as little as possible if they want to contact us by phone – we offer a 0800 freephone number for landline calls and a 03 number if they are calling from a mobile (03 numbers are charged the same as geographic 01/02 number).

EE – The UK’s largest mobile phone company have just announced that they plan to offer a priority service allowing customers to jump their long customer service queue by paying a flat 50p fee. As you can imagine, this news has struck a chord with their customer base and angered many of them. EE have said that they had set high standards for their customer service operations and added that ‘small charges’ contributed to the investment in this side of the business.

So let’s look at this an example, is this a good idea? – In our humble opinion the answer has to be no. Companies have a duty to their customers to not over charge them if they need to contact them by phone. In fact, a change in regulation on 13th June this year states that customer service and complaint lines cannot charge their callers more than calling a standard geographic 01/02 number. This law applies to most companies and organisations in the UK, with the exception of financial and Government organisations.  So it’s a change for the better for the consumer which is a good thing, if you put yourself in the position of having to contact your mobile supplier because your handset is faulty or you’ve been overcharged on your bill then you will want to get this resolved as efficiently and as quickly as possible, without having being charged the Earth for contacting them.

If you are a business, you should be listening to your customers and looking at what they mean to you. Are you happy for them to be paying a premium to speak to you or would you be happy having to pay that call charge yourself if you had to contact a supplier? Business owners should think long and hard about this.

You need to remember that your customers do have a voice and they can be heard, especially in this world of social media where customer feedback and frustrations can be aired for all to see. Annoy them enough and they’ll jump ship and leave. Then where will that leave you…

Written by Omar Shah, Director at Direct Numbers

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk