Women get more annoyed than men with aspects of bad customer service

Consumer Reports News: June 13, 2011 11:38 AM

Find Ratings

Customer service

When it comes to certain aspects of customer service women get frustrated at higher percentages than men, whether it's over the phone or in person.

Recent survey results published in the July issue of Consumer Reports, show just how annoyed both men and women are with customer service.

Here are some aspects of customer service that frustrated women more than men when it came to trying to reach customer service by phone. The percentages below represent the number of men or women who reported being "tremendously annoyed."

1. Having to go through multiple steps to get the right person on the other end.

61 percent of women
51 percent of men

2. Annoyed at not being able to get a human being on the phone.

75 percent of women
67 percent of men

3. When a person does eventually come on the line, they don't' seem sorry that they can't fix the problem.

50 percent of women
42 percent of men

The one category where men's levels of annoyance went above and beyond women's? When the person on the other end of the line tried to sell them an extra feature or something unrelated to their reason for calling:

50 percent of men
42 percent of women

Some things that annoyed men and women pretty much equally included having to wait on hold forever, and while enduring that wait listening to the same ad or message played over and over again. The same went for repetitive music.

What's your top gripe about crummy customer service?

For more about what both men and women hate about bad customer service check out the full story, What's wrong with customer service?

—Maggie Shader