Americans would rather shave their head than contact customer support

A quarter of Americans would rather shave their head than contact customer support, according to new research. The survey of 2,000 Americans (who have ever dealt with customer support) revealed 24% would prefer to shave their head than speak with customer service — and that’s not the only extreme some respondents are willing to go to. Instead of trying to resolve an issue, respondents would rather do their taxes (30%), go to the dentist (28%) or go to the DMV (25%). Twenty-two percent would even choose a night in jail over dealing with a customer support representative. Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Twilio Flex, the survey looked at the effect customer service can have on Americans’ habits — then it also dug into the current pain points people experience, to see why they might go to such extremes to avoid resolving their issue. According to the survey results, 62% of respondents have stopped using a company or service specifically because of a bad customer support experience. And the opposite is true as well: 80% of respondents are more likely to be loyal to a company in the future if they have a positive experience with their support team. Results found negative experiences, unfortunately, tend to be more prevalent: it takes an average of three attempts and more than an hour and a half on hold — in order to solve just one issue with customer support. Respondents spend 42 minutes on hold each time they contact customer service, which they have to do about three times per issue. But even once they are able to speak with a representative, their issue is resolved less than half the time — with an average success rate of only 46%. Two-thirds (65%) of those surveyed said it “doesn’t feel worth it” to get an issue resolved, due to the time and effort it takes. When asked about specific pain points, needing to repeat details of an issue to a new representative after being transferred or disconnected (45%) was revealed to cause the most frustration for respondents. That was followed by needing to contact a company multiple times to get an issue resolved (42%) — and having only one option for a communication method (email, phone, etc.) to reach a customer support representative (40%). And all the frustrations that come with contacting customer service might be why 66% of respondents delay reaching out. For those who delay contacting someone after an issue arises, the average respondent waits for a little over two weeks — or about 16 days. This has caused respondents to get stuck in unwanted contracts because they miss the cancellation window (46%), miss the return window for products (44%) and even lose money on an item or service (41%). “A major root cause of bad customer service is enabling technology that isn’t built to meet today’s customer expectations,” said Simonetta Turek, GM of Customer Experience Products, including Flex, Twilio’s contact center solution.