Top 50 Call Centres 2009

Last year's 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. Six financial services & insurance call centres featured in the Top Ten last year with first direct emerging as the overall winner just ahead of Denplan, F&C Investments and Lloyds TSB Insurance.

The research this year will consist of 12,000 mystery shopper calls to leading call centres across five sectors – retail, financial services & insurance, telecoms & utilities, public sector and entertainment, leisure & travel.

Each call centre will be rated using over 50 criteria across five key areas of service - timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalised service.

Organisations subscribing will each receive the following results, based on 200 mystery calls (half of which are made by real-life customers of each company). These will be available in October 2009:

• A ranked position within the Top 50, as well as within the specific sector and within each service area, based on call centre performance
• A Top 50 accreditation and logo
• Standard and personalised reports, in addition to mystery call recordings for training purposes
• A table at the Gala Dinner & Awards night, at which the findings will be announced
• Substantial press coverage