Fleming has had it with obtrusive telephone salespeople
Radio 2's morning programme 'De Inspecteur' ('The Inspector') regularly listens to 'the voice of the consumer'. This time, presenter Sven Pichal was out to find Flemish consumers' biggest problems and irritations. After he made the appeal several weeks ago, hundreds of e-mails came into the Radio 2 mailbox. Based on these testimonies, a representative survey was taken from 1,475 Flemings and a consumer annoyances top-5 was compiled.
The 5 biggest annoyances of the Flemish consumer
1. Aggressive telephone sales methods - 40.5% of survey subjects took issue with obtrusive call centre salespeople, who called whenever it seemed to suit them.
2. Customer service - 32.8% of subjects experienced difficulties with a telephone customer service that didn't work properly, for example because of overly intricate menus, being transferred to voicemail all the time, or not being connected to the right person.
3. Public transport issues - 30.7% of subjects has regularly been frustrated with buses or trains that were tardy, or that simply didn't show up. Furthermore, many of them were just dissatisfied with public transport schedules altogether.
4. Excessive consumerism - 27.4% of subjects reported that they'd used products that broke much too soon, and that they disliked unnecessary packaging and waste.
5. Misleading advertising - 25.7% said to despise obscure sales conditions, small print, and the fact that sometimes the sales offer was inapplicable to them specifically.
Just outside of the top-5: telecommunications issues (16.3%), an unclear view of the total cost of a product or service (15.8%), and vague warranty deals (13.5%).
23% finds solution
One out of five subjects said they had regularly experienced grave consumer frustrations in the past year. 28% said that their problems remained unresolved.
Fortunately, things aren't all bad: 40% declares that all these frustrations aren't that terrible after all, and 35% adds that they've had positive consumer experiences as well during the past year. With 23% of subjects, the problem was even resolved completely in the end.
Women seem to be more worried than men. The latter are quicker to admit that things turned out fine after they reported their problem. There's also an age difference: older people seem to be more easily frustrated. People older than 55 have less faith in things turning out for the better after reporting a consumer issue.