Most Call Charges for Corporate Customer Service Hotlines Are Borne by Consumers

Examples of Free and Paid Call Indicators

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] It has been found that customer center call charges operated by companies are often paid, and the waiting time for consultations is long, indicating a need for improvement.

On the 27th, the Korea Consumer Agency announced the results of monitoring the operation status of customer centers for 172 businesses in fields closely related to consumer life such as distribution, telecommunications, and food and beverage.

The survey found that all businesses operated dedicated customer center phone lines and automated response systems (ARS). Online 1:1 bulletin boards were operated by 91.3%, chatbots by 58.7%, and chat consultations by 47.4%. Among the businesses, 69.2% operated only paid phone lines for customer center phone/ARS calls, 20.3% operated both paid and free lines, and 10.5% operated only free lines.

59.9% of the businesses operated nationwide representative number services starting with 15XX, 16XX, or 18XX. Nationwide representative numbers require the caller to bear the call charges, which are relatively expensive. However, among these, 92.2% did not inform on their websites or mobile applications (apps) that call charges would apply, and 59.2% did not notify callers that the call was paid when connecting the call.

Separately, a survey of 1,000 consumers who used customer centers in the past year showed that 70.4% preferred phone/ARS as their contact method. Even consumers in their 20s and 30s, who are accustomed to online communication, preferred phone/ARS, indicating that phone calls are the most familiar communication method regardless of age. Among 686 consumers who used phone/ARS, 46.8% were unaware that the representative number call was paid.

Among them, a survey of 637 consumers who had experience speaking with a consultant found that 54.8% said it took "3 minutes or more" to connect to a consultant. 5.5% responded that it took more than 10 minutes. Because of this, among 126 people who were dissatisfied with using phone/ARS, 75.4% cited "difficulty connecting to a consultant" as the reason for dissatisfaction.

The reasons for contacting the customer center (multiple responses allowed) were led by "inquiries about quality and after-sales service (A/S)" at 45.9%, followed by "return/refund requests" (27.7%), "simple inquiries" (20.1%), and "exchange requests" (15.8%). Satisfaction levels (on a 5-point scale) showed that for phone/ARS, "accuracy of problem resolution" scored 3.31 points, while for online bulletin boards, chatbots, and chat consultations, "ease of use" scored relatively high at 3.82 points and 3.89 points respectively.