At TalkTalk Business, service is at the core of what we do. We’re dedicated to providing exceptional support to our customers, so they can get the most out of their connectivity and focus on what they do best. We were among the finalists at the Customer Experience Awards 2022 for Best Complaint Handling - and we're thrilled to announce that we took home a Silver award!

The Customer Experience Awards 2022 is the nation’s first – and largest – celebration of customer experience, and it's a real honour to have had our efforts recognised at this event.

Over the last two years in particular, we’ve pulled out all the stops to upgrade our approach to customer service. The first major change was overhauling our complaints handling process, creating an in-house Customer Experience team to replace the external agency we’d previously used. We recruited the team in November 2020 to exclusively handle all customer dissatisfaction in connection with TalkTalk Business.

Within weeks, the team was impressing, resolving issues quickly and effectively, demonstrating product knowledge, and showing a real understanding of customer pain points. They reviewed and updated all our customer knowledge articles in our online Support Centre, and the most commonly asked questions in our FAQs started to be escalated, which contributed to a significant reduction in complaint volumes. In fact, from January 2021 to June 2022, there was a 38% drop.

Customer feedback is crucial in helping guide our approach and make improvements, so the team next focused on our Trustpilot reviews. Whether reviews were positive, negative or neutral, the team created bespoke responses to customers’ feedback, to acknowledge and address their comments.

They then went the extra mile for customers depending on the response received, whether that involved calling the customer to help understand where improvements could be made, or opening up an investigation with a Customer Experience agent and ensuring that the complaint was resolved within five working days.

Thanks to these improvements, we broke records in 2021; out of a total of 1,826 Trustpilot reviews, 1,438 were 5* ratings - our highest ever in a calendar year. And in 2022, our Trustpilot score rose to 4.6, up from 4.35 in 2020. The average response time to negative reviews is now one hour, and the number of service calls resolved within the first interaction has risen from 37% in 2019/20 to 78% in 2022.

The last two years have been tough for every business. From the difficulties caused by the pandemic to the challenges posed by the current economic climate, it’s been far from plain sailing. With so much uncertainty, we know it’s more important than ever for us to be there for our customers and that’s why we’ll continue to challenge ourselves to keep improving, no matter what.

If you’d like to find out more about the UK Customer Experience Awards, click here. And to keep up to date with the latest news from TalkTalk Business, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.