New research from Twilio reveals UK consumers have lost an average of £95 each in the last year by giving up on ‘brand admin’ – i.e. tasks to manage their accounts or interactions with brands, like doing returns, following up on product faults, or questioning incorrect bills.

Over half of consumers (54%) have lost their patience or become emotional (47%) with brands wasting their time, and 37% now expect companies to use AI to deliver more efficient services. That’s according to new research from Twilio, the customer engagement platform that drives real-time, personalised experiences for today’s leading brands.

While mundane household tasks, like cleaning, food shopping, and meal prepping, regularly test our patience, almost half of Brits (49%) also consider brand admin (or ‘brandmin’) – i.e. tasks to manage their accounts or interactions with brands – to be a significant chore.

With UK consumers spending a whopping 45 minutes a week on average on such tasks, amounting to over 1.5 days a year, it’s no surprise that 47% of consumers see brand admin as an unnecessary time drain. It’s even resulted in many giving up on ‘brandmin’ tasks entirely, with Brits having lost an average of £95 each in the last year at their expense. This amounts to a whopping £3 billion collectively lost by UK consumers.

However, the research also found that streamlined customer engagement could benefit businesses as much as consumers, with 22% of respondents saying they would likely use any time saved to browse more products and services. It highlighted a significant opportunity for brands to create more positive interactions with their consumers during the touchpoints they have, instead of burdening them with unwanted tasks.

‘Brandmin’ time drains

When asked what types of ‘brandmin’ are the most irritating, consumers ranked the following as the most arduous experiences:

• Being put on hold (43%)
• Being passed around departments or incorrectly transferred (43%)
• Lengthy resolution processes (27%)
•  Multi-factor authentication (25%)
•  Complicated returns processes (22%)

Lack of choice also played into customer dissatisfaction, with Brits being forced into interactions on channels they don’t want to use (18%), or having to reach out at inconvenient times (19%).

Sam Richardson, Customer Engagement Consultant at Twilio, comments: “It’s up to brands to course correct their customer engagement tactics to ensure they are having positive interactions with consumers, rather than those centered around burdensome ‘brandmin’ chores that ultimately dictate consumers’ perceptions of them. Beyond overcoming these universal ‘brandmin’ pet peeves, AI tools can also help brands better listen to, understand, and accommodate their different customers’ engagement preferences, so that being forced into interactions on certain channels and at restricted times becomes a thing of the past. AI can also take these preferences into account to ensure every customer interaction is entirely unique and hyper-tailored to the intended recipient.”

A customer deal breaker

Such inconveniences often result in consumers giving up entirely on their ‘brandmin’ chores. Indeed, in the past 12 months, consumers have dropped a task or issue entirely due to communications taking up too much time (33%), or it being a frustrating experience for them (34%). A quarter (25%) even say they’ve ended up paying more, or lost money, by not following up on a ‘brandmin’ task. In fact, UK consumers report to have lost £95 on average a year by not completing such chores.

Inefficient interactions are also impacting brand loyalty. Brits report the following knock on effects:

• Taking their business elsewhere (36%)
• Brands going down in their estimations (34%)
• Complaining about it to friends and family (28%)
• Seeing the brand as having incompetent customer service capabilities (28%)
• Viewing the brand as not valuing them or their time (27%)

Saying goodbye to burdensome ‘brandmin’

In 2024, with customer expectations increasing, sub-par customer interactions simply aren’t good enough, with almost two fifths (39%) of consumers regularly left disappointed by their brand interactions. Twilio also found consumers want to cut down on the time they spend doing brand admin (57%), and almost half (49%) have missed out on doing more valuable things at the expense of brand admin – such as work, other household tasks, exercising, hobbies, and spending time with family and friends.

Thanks to the emergence of AI, customers expect rapid improvements in the next 12 months, with them hoping it can shorten waiting times (34%), provide 24/7 customer service availability (34%), put them through to the correct department first time (28%), automatically verify their identity (22%), streamline or automate changes or cancellations to contracts (18%), or streamline resolutions to complaints and product faults (17%).

Richardson, adds: “It’s alarming just how much ‘brand admin’ creeps into our everyday lives. It has a detrimental impact on customers’ mood and emotions when they can’t reach a resolution or get in touch on our preferred channel, putting a massive burden on them and negatively impacting their brand views. And with customer time incredibly valuable, we’re at a tipping point where people simply won’t put up with their time being wasted anymore, either.

In the age of AI, there’s incredible opportunity for brands to address this and create more efficient, positive communications. Brands need to rise to the occasion and remove the ‘time drain’ tasks that seem to go hand-in-hand with being a customer. Helping customers reach resolutions is the answer – it’s as simple as that.”