Outbound Call Center Featured Article

Service Appointments Imprison Americans in Homes

By David Sims
TMCnet Contributing Editor

According to The Street, a new survey found the standard 3-5 hour in-home service appointment windows “are costing U.S. businesses billions of dollars and causing 51 percent of consumers who have waited for a service provider to feel like prisoners in their own homes.”

Hey, that’s if the service guy shows up at all, and you don’t get the dreaded “Look, I’m running late, call the office and reschedule” call. Because you remember the office told you the only available dates were today and some time during the next papal administration.

Key survey findings include:

72 million Americans feel service providers are making them a prisoner in their own homes: Three-quarters (76 percent) of consumers are inconvenienced by traditional multi-hour service windows. These experiences have left half of respondents "feeling like a prisoner in their home". This translates into approximately 72 million Americans.

Appointments costing $13.4 billion in lost workplace productivity: Eighty-one percent of consumers report having to take time off from work or adjust their schedules, to ensure they are home during the service appointment window. This translates into more than $13.4 billion in lost productivity for U.S. businesses.

Consumers report text messaging is the answer: If given the option, the majority of consumers would opt-in for text notifications with more specific technician arrival times. Specifically, almost two-thirds (61 percent), equivalent to more than 108 million Americans, would be interested in text messages providing a one-hour notice of the technician's arrival, and over half (56 percent) would provide their mobile number to receive these types of text messages.

Sixty percent indicated text messaging would be a more convenient way to interact or reschedule appointments.

More than half (54 percent) of survey respondents stated offering a shorter window of time for scheduled service appointments would greatly improve their satisfaction and overall perception of the company.