Call centres 'give poor service'

Almost 1,000 people said call centres had given them problems

Most British people are unhappy with the levels of service they receive from call centres, a survey suggests.

The British Standards Institute (BSI) asked 2,000 consumers which sectors they believed gave poor service and 64% said call centres.

Builders and estate agents also fared poorly, with 46% and 44% of consumers polled saying their standards were low.

The BSI is promoting Thursday's World Standards Day in an attempt to raise awareness of service levels.

Of the 2,000 consumers asked, 920 (46%) said they had personally experienced poor quality service from call centres within the past year.

WORST PERCEIVED SECTORS Call centres 64% Builders 46% Estate agents 44% Taxi firms 40% Plumbers 38% Mobile phone operators 34% Utility companies 34% Source: BSI

About a fifth of respondents said banks, utility companies and mobile phone operators had given them poor service during the same period.

The BSI also asked people about labelling on food, with 72% saying they felt nutritional information was misleading.

And 92% of those polled said they would support moves to standardise food labels.

Naomi Cohen, spokeswoman for the BSI, said many areas of business needed to "raise their game" as far as standards were concerned.

"What the survey reveals is a general perception that there is room for significant improvement to the levels of service in many sectors," she said.

PERSONAL BAD EXPERIENCES Call centres 46% Banks/financial institution 21% Utility companies 21% Mobile phone operators 20% Retailers 19% Taxi firms 17% Source: BSI

But she said the BSI was already working to solve some of these problems.

She said: "There are some call centres, for example, who have adopted our standards and their service levels have improved.

"We have standards for complaint handling, which has been a problem area particularly for call centres.

"But those who have adopted our standard for complaint handling have set a high level of good practice."

The BSI tried to provide a dialogue between businesses and consumers to improve standards, she said.

The organisation publishes the full report on Thursday.

It is also supporting events around the world for World Standards Day.