2011_ContactBabel - Syntellect

Figure 38: Average speed to answer, by vertical market
80
Average speed to answer, by vertical market
70
71
70
60
53
50
40
40
38
37
Mean
Median
30
20
29
23
33
25
32
23
31
17
30 30 30
29
27 27
20 20
31
22
10
-
Public Sector Telecoms Utilities Retail &
Distribution
Services IT Medical Transport &
Travel
Insurance Finance Outsourcing Average
Most sectors have greatly improved their speed to answer over the years, with many of the high-volume yet
simple interactions, such as password reset and account balance, now being carried out via self-service. The overall
industry ASA mean average has stayed relatively steady, at 31 seconds, slightly up from 29 seconds in 2009. Of
more interest to readers using this report as a benchmarking tool, the median average has been included this year,
so as to dilute the negative upward effect of a very few respondents that have ASA figures of 2 or 3 minutes, which
skew the whole industry upward, and which is especially dramatic within a sector.
Comparing mean and median side-by-side, we can see that the public sector has a few poor performers which drag
the mean upward, away from an entirely respectable 29 second median ASA. The utilities and telecoms sectors,
whose mean and median are reasonably similar - and high - seem to be the vertical markets under the most
pressure.
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