Brand admin costs UK consumers £3bn a year

Almost half of Brits (49%) consider brand admin (‘brandmin’) – tasks to manage their accounts or interactions with brands – to be a significant chore, but choosing to save time by ignoring it costs money. 

That’s according to research from custom engagement platform Twilio which identified the most irritating experiences consumers have to endure and which have led to around half having lost their patience or becoming emotional.

‘Brandmin’ time drains

• Being put on hold (43%)
• Being passed around departments or incorrectly transferred (43%)
• Lengthy resolution processes (27%)
• Multi-factor authentication (25%)
• Complicated returns processes (22%) 
• Being forced into interactions on channels they don’t want to use (18%) or having to reach out at inconvenient times (19%) 

Time is money 

• UK consumers spend 45 minutes a week on average on such ‘brandmin’ tasks, amounting to over 1.5 days a year.
• Almost half (47%) have given up on such tasks entirely, citing the time taken or the frustrations endured. 
• Brits lost an average of £95 each in the last year at their expense – or £3bn collectively. 

Why brandmin matters

Negative brand experiences inevitably have an effect on loyalty and word of mouth, as consumers complain to family and friends and choose to take their business elsewhere.

So what’s the answer? 

• While it’s no surprise that brands will reach for AI to help create more streamlined customer engagement, it seems that consumers are also banking on new tech to solve the problems created by old tech.
• Over the next 12 months, customers are hoping AI can shorten waiting times (34%), provide 24/7 customer service availability (34%), put them through to the correct department the first time (28%), automatically verify their identity (22%), streamline or automate changes or cancellations to contracts (18%), or streamline resolutions to complaints and product faults (17%).

Key quote

“Brands need to rise to the occasion and remove the ‘time drain’ tasks that seem to go hand-in-hand with being a customer. Helping customers reach resolutions is the answer – it’s as simple as that” – Sam Richardson, Customer Engagement Consultant at Twilio.

Sourced from Twilio