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NEWS RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Avanade UK: Caroline Overholt
PHONE 020 7025 1098
EMAIL caroline.overholt@avanade.com
AGENCY NAME/CONTACT: Matt Bailey/Danielle
Williams, Waggener Edstrom PR
PHONE 020 7832 3800
EMAIL avanade@waggeneredstrom.com
ONLY ONE IN TWENTY CONSUMERS BELIEVE BUSINESSES HAVE IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE SINCE
THE START OF THE RECESSION
Poor customer service is fostering a growing tide of complaints on social media
London, UK - March 11 th 2011: despite the challenging economic environment, businesses are failing to
look after their customers. That is the finding of new research from Avanade, the business technology
service provider, which revealed that while 83% of consumers expect companies to make more of an
effort to keep them happy than they did three years ago, only 5% believe that customer service has
improved since the start of the recession.
“Everyone knows that in tough times, you absolutely need to look after the customers you already have
in order to protect your revenue - as a general rule of thumb, it costs five times as much to attract a new
customer than to keep an existing one satisfied,” comments Jonathan Rowley, CRM director at Avanade.
“While companies are clearly having to cut costs, this no longer means that customer service has to
suffer. CRM technology solves these two apparently conflicting needs.”
The research, carried out by independent pollster YouGov, explored consumer attitudes around
customer service in the context of post-recession Britain. Not only did it uncover a significant gap

etween consumer expectations and the quality of service they received, it also revealed that only 14%
of consumers believe companies live up to the customer service promises they make.
The survey also explored the preferred channels for customer complaints and uncovered a growing
trend for consumers to simply moan about a particular product or service, either in person or via blogs
and social networks, instead of making a formal complaint. While 41% of people still use the telephone
to complain and 63% of people use email, 20% of people are already using blogs and social networks to
complain to their family and friends – this figure rises to 36% for 18-24 year olds.
“There has been a lot of hype in the industry about social CRM and the need to capture complaints
online, but these findings clearly illustrate that businesses still need to get the basics right,” continues
Jonathan Rowley. “While we’re all too aware of the potential damage to reputation that can be caused
by an online backlash, it is more likely to be caused by inadequate customer service systems in the first
place.”
The recent fines imposed on banks by the Financial Services Authority, and on telecoms companies by
Ofcom, illustrate how poor complaints handling is hurting UK business – and the pressure from
regulators to handle disputes faster and more fairly is increasing.
Avanade's automated system of complaints management is based on Microsoft® Dynamics's Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) technology. It provides a flexible and cost-effective way to deal with
complaints management – improving customer satisfaction and business performance. Deploying the
solution as a hosted service on the cloud enables companies to get started quickly – and realise even
greater savings.
“In periods when budgets are tight and businesses find it difficult grow, companies need to be smart
about how they operate,” continues Jonathan Rowley. “We see companies that are still trying to
manage the old fashioned way with piles of paper based complaints!”
Avanade’s complaints management system enables businesses to cut costs, resolve problems faster,
increase customer loyalty and revenue, improve business performance and compliance.

About Avanade
- Ends -
Avanade provides business technology services that connect insight, innovation and expertise in Microsoft
technologies to help customers realize results. Avanade’s services and solutions help improve performance,
productivity and sales for organizations in all industries. The company applies Microsoft expertise from its global
network of consultants, drawing on the right mix of onshore, offshore and nearshore skills, which together are
designed to help deliver results faster, at lower cost and with less risk. Avanade, which is majority owned by
Accenture, was founded in 2000 by Accenture and Microsoft Corporation and serves customers in more than 20
countries worldwide with more than 12,000 professionals. Additional information can be found at
www.avanade.com.
Avanade and the Avanade logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Avanade Inc. Other product, service, or
company names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. ®2011
Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.