Member Article

Nuisance calls cost UK home entrepreneurs more than 550,000 days in lost productivity every year

Nuisance calls cost UK home entrepreneurs more than 550,000 days in lost productivity every year

23rd September 2014 - The UK’s 2.65 million home entrepreneurs are plagued by nuisance calls. On average, small business owners working from home receive five nuisance calls per week, lasting one and a half minutes. On top of this, they estimate that it takes over four minutes to regain focus on a task interrupted by a nuisance call. This ultimately means that up to 550,368 days of productivity are lost from the UK economy every year.

In a survey of home entrepreneurs commissioned by Panasonic[i], respondents said that nuisance calls had the biggest negative impact on productivity (64%) and focus (75%), making it harder for those running their business from home.

Respondents reported feeling angry (77%), frustrated (76%) and harassed (71%) by the unwanted interruptions, with a whopping 83% reporting being bothered by nuisance calls.

According to research by Ofcom[ii], the worst offenders for nuisance calls are those selling PPI claims, accounting for 13% of all nuisance calls, with insurance (9%) and solar panels (8%) coming in second and third. But worst of all, 32% of UK consumers were unsure where to get advice on preventing nuisance calls.

“Nuisance calls are fast becoming a major problem for business owners that work from home. Even those that register with the Telephone Preference Service are often plagued with annoying calls – from unscrupulous callers masquerading as computer help desk staff to automated messages about loft insulation. Many home owners simply put the phone down on these callers” says Rory MccGwire, founder of small business support organisation, The Start Up Donut. “However, business owners often have to waste valuable time ascertaining whether the caller is genuine or not – just in case it turns out to be a potential customer. It’s a complete waste of time and a very unwelcome interruption.”

“Despite the authorities’ best efforts, nuisance calls are not going away, and our research shows that they are having a costly impact on the UK’s home entrepreneurs,” said Helen Dixon, DECT Product Marketing Manager at Panasonic UK. “The Government’s Telephone Preference Service will go some way to helping avoid nuisance calls, but the biggest thing UK small business owners can do to protect themselves, is purchase the right technology. A home phone with a built in nuisance call blocking feature will help them avoid interruptions and stay focused and productive.”

Business owner and director of North East electrical contractors firm, AC Electrical Specialists, Chrissie Gardiner, says:

“Although we had asked our phone provider to block such calls, they still come through which not only makes the main phone line unavailable to customers or clients, but disturbs concentration which could potentially be damaging especially if you are number crunching or typing up important test sheets. We pride ourselves on running a professional business and responding promptly to customers and clients so the interruption of pointless sales calls could jeopardise a good reputation that we have worked tirelessly to create. It leaves you feeling frustrated and looking for a simple solution to this intensely irritating problem.”

Product Information

The Panasonic KX-PRW120 will automatically block nuisance calls, without even ringing, helping you to stay on-task.

Other functions:

State-of-the-art Smartphone Connect enables smartphone and tablet users to sync contacts across handsets, make landline calls from your smartphone phonebook and it also recognises who is calling the home phone using smartphone contacts

In-built nuisance call-blocking feature Up to 4x smartphone handsets can be registered to the KX-PRW120, potentially letting any member of a family answer an incoming landline call through their mobile handset Rich functionality includes talking caller ID, automatic background noise detection and reduction during calls Advanced TAM (Answering Machine) allows you to fast forward and rewind message playback (so no need to listen to a whole message again because you missed the last digit of the number to call back) and can be set to alert you to new messages by SMS to your registered smartphone handset You can even use these phones to find your keys – and KX-PRW120 also doubles up as a baby monitor

[i] A survey of 500 home entrepreneurs in the UK, commissioned by Panasonic and carried out by Redshift Research in August 2014.

[ii] A survey of 926 people with home landline phones in the UK, commissioned by Ofcom and carried out by GfK NOP in May 2014.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Panasonic .