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Almost half of MoneySavers prefer to contact customer services via phone, finds new MSE poll
Almost half (47%) of MoneySavers prefer to contact customer services via phone, a new MoneySavingExpert.com poll has found. However, this varies greatly by age, with most younger respondents (aged 49 and under) preferring to use Live Chat services over phone.
Our latest poll, which surveyed 5,985 people, ran between Tuesday 14 September and Tuesday 21 September. Respondents were asked how they prefer to contact the customer services departments of companies, and were given a range of options to choose from, including phone, email, live chat, social media, messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and iMessage, post and face to face.
While not representative of the UK population, the results offer a snapshot of how people prefer to communicate with companies, particularly as the ways in which you can now contact customer service departments is becoming increasingly digitised.
The results show that live chat is the most favoured option for those aged under 49, while those aged 50 and over prefer to use the phone. The findings also revealed that contacting customer service departments by post is the least popular method of communication across most age groups.
Poll results in full - How do you prefer to contact customer services?
See the tables below for a full breakdown of our findings:
MSE Poll: How do you prefer to contact customer services?
(Overall results listed, plus results by age)
| Overall | Under 25 | 25-34 | 35-49 | 50-64 | 65-79 | 80 and over | Age - prefer not to say | |
| Phone | 47.4% | 21.6% | 25.4% | 31.1% | 49.4% | 58.4% | 55.3% | 65.1% |
| 19.7% | 15.7% | 10.8% | 19.9% | 20% | 21% | 26.2% | 20.6% | |
| Live Chat | 28.7% | 56.9% | 60.4% | 44.2% | 27.1% | 16.1% | 10.6% | 7.9% |
| Social Media | 0.9% | 2% | 1.4% | 2% | 0.9% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Messaging App | 0.8% | 0% | 1.6% | 1.8% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0% | 1.6% |
| Post | 0.4% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0% |
| Face to Face | 2.2% | 3.9% | 0.4% | 1% | 1.8% | 3.1% | 7.1% | 4.8% |
MSE Poll: How do you prefer to contact customer services?
(Results by gender)
| Male | Female | Gender - prefer not to say | |
| Phone | 46% | 48.2% | 50.9% |
| 21.2% | 18.6% | 24.5% | |
| Live Chat | 28.2% | 29.4% | 15.1% |
| Social Media | 1% | 0.7% | 3.8% |
| Messaging App | 0.6% | 0% | 0.9% |
| Post | 0.5% | 0.9% | 0% |
| Face to Face | 2.5% | 1.9% | 4.7% |
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