A recent survey of 200 organisations has revealed that sickness and absence is still the major issue affecting service delivery and the customer experience.

Cognito, the workforce management specialist, commissioned Redshift Research to survey 200 business managers responsible for mobile workers in the UK, to examine the key hurdles to delivering service excellence. Sickness ranked as the most common problem affecting service delivery (39%), followed by traffic congestion (37%) and unavailability of staff (36%). Across vertical sectors the retail, distribution and transport sector were more affected by sickness than any others (41%).

Nine per cent of organisations reported having no visibility of customer service delivery. 37 per cent of organisations cited customer interaction and satisfaction as areas where they would like more visibility.

“The survey results clearly show that visibility of customer interaction and satisfaction is something organisations need and want more of,” said Jonathan Chevallier, Strategic Development Director at Cognito. “If unavailability of staff and traffic most commonly affects service delivery, you can manage both with better real-time insight. Focusing on visibility and employee engagement will obviously help decrease absenteeism and preempt service shortfalls.”

24 per cent of organisations reported that absenteeism has a large impact on their operations. With both absenteeism and sickness being reported factors, regardless of the size of the organisation.

When asked what their number one service challenge was, the most common responses were listed as absenteeism, punctuality, staff training, staff motivation, speed of response, highlighting the consequences of poor employee engagement and the impact it has on service delivery. Other challenges listed include: customer satisfaction, managing customer expectations, and meeting targets (SLAs & KPIs).

For more information on the survey, carried about by Cognito in conjunction with Redshift Research, click here.