Poor accessibility is more expensive than you might think

What is accessibility?

Reachability is a broad term. One could use the following definition: Reachability is the perceived extent to which an organisation is open and available for communication with stakeholders at the initiative of those stakeholders.

What is good accessibility?

Good accessibility is not unequivocal. Indeed, what is good for one person may not be good for another, and what is good at one moment may not be good at another. If you wanted to define good accessibility, you could say that good accessibility is the difference between expected accessibility and perceived accessibility. If the accessibility, in the broadest sense of the word, falls within expectations then the perception is good, if it falls outside then the perceived accessibility is bad. In the most common b2b and b2c environment, it is somewhat simpler. The definition of good accessibility should then be determined on the basis of a customer inventory in which 1 question should be central: "What do you expect from us in terms of accessibility?".

What does good customer service deliver?

Good accessibility delivers a lot, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

• Positive customer experienceBeing there for your customers has a positive influence on how customers experience being a customer. Being easily and quickly accessible at those times and on those channels that are important to your customer is a sign that you have immersed yourself in your customer. That you know what is important to your customer and take that into account.
• Competitive advantage: If you are more reachable or reachable when your competition is not, you have a competitive advantage. Especially when you match your reachability to the wishes and needs of your (potential) customers. Both with regard to channel preferences, opening hours and speed of question answering.
• Higher customer satisfaction: Customers are more satisfied the moment they can directly reach the organisations they are customers of when and how they want.
• More turnover: The above points ultimately lead to higher sales.

What does bad accessibility/customer service cost?

Poor accessibility ultimately costs every commercial organisation money. If you do not or insufficiently attune your reachability to the wishes and needs of your (potential) customers, they will eventually walk away or buy less. Especially now that service and customer experience are important factors in customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction still partly determines customer behaviour.

So poor accessibility simply costs turnover. How much turnover is difficult to determine because many companies do not even have visibility into their reachability. Ask an average SME 'er how many calls he misses. The vast majority have no idea. An average SME closes its doors and lines at 5 pm and is available again the next morning at 9 am. It is the companies that do this differently that are often much more successful. The companies that can be reached when their customers want them to be.

The practice

Earlier this year, we called 2,000 SMEs to survey their accessibility. Based on this, we can draw the conclusion that SMEs in the Netherlands are poorly reachable. We called during office hours and yet in over 30% of the cases we did not get a hold of anyone. On average, we had to call twice to get someone on the line and the waiting time was well over 30 seconds on average.

In short: get your reachability in order. Make sure the phone is answered at those times your customer would like it to be. If you can't manage that yourself, we will be happy to help you optimise your reachability.