Groundbreaking Call Center Research Report on Apple, Dell, and HP: An Interview with Vocalabs CEO Peter Leppik

Technical support is an inherent part of the customer experience for many businesses, and how well that service is delivered can have a profound and lasting effect on the customer’s willingness to buy again in the future. New research from Vocal Laboratories (Vocalabs) validates the impact of phone-based customer service on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Peter Leppik is the CEO of Vocalabs and spoke with Customer Management IQ’s Blake Landau about the research that went into the technology surveys. The research conducted compares customer service quality for PC manufacturers and is based on results of 1,147 completed telephone interviews conducted between May 2008 and May 2009. The study found that customers who said they were very satisfied with the call were nearly three times more likely to purchase again from the company than customers who said they were dissatisfied with the call. Of the call factors measured in the study, issue resolution had the greatest impact on customer satisfaction. The study found that Apple leads Dell and HP in customer satisfaction with phone-based tech support; 58 percent of Apple customers reported they were "Very Satisfied" with the call, compared to only 46 percent of Dell customers and 43 percent of HP customers. While customers from each company were generally satisfied with hold times, ease of reaching a call center representative and the call center representative’s professionalism, Apple did a better job of resolving customer issues and eliminating irrelevant and repetitive steps.