Top Countries With the Best Customer Service

Did you know that when it comes to customer satisfaction, the United States falls short of the top 10, behind Russia, Poland and Chile?

That the worst industry for service is social media? Or that the worst time to contact customer support is after 6 p.m.?

Well, now you do.

The findings come courtesy of Zendesk’s latest report on customer satisfaction, which measures service across 6,000 companies and 125 countries to determine the best and worst countries, industries, and even time of day for customer support.

The research paints a bleak picture for American consumers, suggesting that we’re often ignored when we ask a company for help. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Let’s hit a few highlights of the Zendesk data.

For those of you who don’t know Zendesk, it’s an app and website that helps companies handle service requests, so it’s in a position to know who is getting the best service — and who isn’t.

Here are the top 12 countries for customer service:

1. Canada
2. Australia
3. Russia
4. Norway
5. Denmark
6. United Kingdom
7. Israel
8. Poland
9. Chile
10. Sweden
11. United States
12. Brazil

Which industries deliver the best service?

(Social media ranks dead-last, at number 17, in case you were wondering).

1. Information technology
2. Government/nonprofit
3. Education
4. Real estate
5. Web hosting
6. Health
7. Manufacturing
8. Web apps
9. Software
10. Marketing
11. Travel
12. Business support

And then there’s the timing of your complaints.

Zendesk reported that support tickets submitted outside of normal business hours have the slowest first-reply time.

The process speeds up when tickets are submitted around 9 a.m., after the tickets submitted from the night before have been processed, but before the tickets from the day have begun to accumulate.

The worst time to call the support desk?

Around 6 p.m., when much of the support staff leaves for the day and non-urgent tickets may have to wait 12-14 hours before the next fully-staffed shift begins, the process tends to be at its slowest.

So what does all of this mean to you?

I asked Sam Boonin, Zendesk’s research lead, to break it down for consumers.

Time of day is very important

“If you go through the day, you can see that companies are very responsive to their customer requests at the beginning of the work day,” he says.

So if you want to contact a company, the early bird gets the worm. If you can get your support request in by lunch time, you’re likely to get a fast response.

The longer you wait, the longer you’ll wait.

Pick up the phone

Calling tends to yield better results than using social media or other communication channels.

Many companies field their customer support requests via social media, but for pure speed, nothing beats a voice call. “Our data shows that the phone is the happiest channel,” says Boonin.

Having a direct conversation leads to the most satisfaction. (Note: this doesn’t eliminate the need to keep a careful paper trail on some more complex requests.)

Do your homework

Choose the company you do business with based on its ability to give good service. 

“It’s easy to choose the cheapest company,” Boonin says. “But the best bet for consumers is to choose companies that value you through your entire lifecycle.”

We spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out how to find those “best” companies, but a good place to start is the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which ranks companies based on their service scores.

So, time your service calls. Remember that not all companies — or industries — value good service equally.

Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate who blogs about getting better customer service at On Your Side. Connect with him on Twitter and Facebook or send him your questions by email.