3rd Party Remote Call Monitoring Feature

Consumers always have something to complain about; they did it yesterday, do it today and will continue to do it tomorrow. But, the way Britons deal with complaints seems to be at variance with how Americans tackle theirs – two different cultures of complaint.

The Englishman is always his stoic self, unmoved, dispassionate, spending three times as long making complaints than U.S. consumers, willing to wait patiently till his problems are solved. This is in direct contrast to the American, who not only lodges more complaints, but demands that they are resolved within an hour.

These are the findings of a study conducted by customer service specialists KANA Software. It discovered that Americans make one and a half times more complaints than the British do each year, and yet get them resolved faster. The British keep plodding on slow and steady till the issue is settled, while the American doesn’t rest easy till his problem is solved. Could this disparity be explained by cultural differences?

“It appears that British stoicism manifests itself in fewer complaints and a more patient approach to queuing,” said James Norwood, chief marketing officer for KANA.

The difference is also visible in the way the complaints are lodged. Of course, it goes without saying that the era of letter writing has been left behind a long time ago, and people today have different channels that are willing to host their complaints. Email seems to be the first choice, followed by the phone for most British consumers that want to air their woes, while Americans typically prefer the phone first with social complaints being their next choice.

But, although there is a world of difference between the two, one common factor unites them: “An almost identical percentage of consumers have complained in the last three years – 71percent in the U.S. and 72 percent in the U.K.”

Despite all that, Norwood cautions organizations and tells them not to be complacent. He indicates that KANA research has found evidence that in the near future, tech-savvy youth will reach out to social media first for consumer complaints, and those companies that are not prepared for this avalanche will be left behind.

For a 21^st century populace, nothing short of a 21^st century version of the store counter will do.