CIRCLELOOP'S

Chatterbox Matrix

After face-to-face meetings, phone calls have long been one of the best ways to conduct business. Far superior to email or instant messaging, which miss the all-important benefit of hearing someone’s voice, phone calls have been key to the success and growth of the global market and cross-country deals.

When face-to-face meetings were officially banned during the pandemic, this only served to reinforce the importance of the phone call in business, not just externally but internally too. But the telecoms industry has of course come a long way since the business first began relying on phone calls for success…

Most Talkative Locations

Discovering the UK's Most Talkative Business Locations

Rapid advancements in technology have made business calls even easier with the need for a wired connection becoming redundant and cloud-based phone systems taking over. Thanks to this, a new era has been born that enables business to be conducted from anywhere, at any time.

Across the UK, and the rest of the world, we’ve been making up for lost time and getting increasingly chatty over the phone, with call numbers and durations rising to impressive levels as businesses bounce back post-Covid. Creating the Chatterbox Matrix, we endeavored to find out which town, region - and even North vs South - in the UK would be home to the chattiest businesses.

Top Ranked

The Top 3 Chattiest Towns in the UK

01 Watford

By far the chattiest, businesses in Watford have an average call duration of 1.8 minutes (108 seconds) and a call volume of 21%.

02 Macclesfield

Coming in second place, businesses in Macclesfield have an average call duration of around 1.7 minutes (104 seconds) and a call volume of 16%.

03 Burnley

In a very close third, businesses in Burnley have an average call duration of around 1.7 minutes (106 seconds) and a call volume of 14%.

Rankings

The Chatterbox Matrix Ranked

Check out the Chatterbox Matrix top 10 to see where you’ll find the chattiest businesses. To reveal the full list of rankings, including all towns and UK regions, type your email address below.


1	Watford	East	108	20.5	100
2	Macclesfield	North West	104	15.5	73
3	Burnley	North West	106	14.4	69
4	Southampton	South East	118	11.9	64
5	Bath	South West	93	13.8	58
6	Huddersfield	Yorkshire and the Humber	89	14.5	58
7	Durham	North East	114	10.2	53
8	Killingholme	East Midlands	79	14.8	53
9	Chester	North West	92	12	50
10	Stoke-on-Trent	West Midlands	113	8.9	46
11	Portsmouth	South East	113	9	46
12	Leicester	East Midlands	82	12	45
13	Wolverhampton	West Midlands	93	10.4	44
14	York	Yorkshire and the Humber	119	7	38
15	Exeter	South West	91	9.3	38
16	Norwich	East	111	7.4	37
17	Ayr	Scotland	75	10.5	36
18	Blackburn	North West	85	9.1	35
19	Harrogate	Yorkshire and the Humber	139	5.2	33
20	Rochdale	North West	90	7.8	32
21	Halifax	Yorkshire and the Humber	129	5.2	30
22	Bristol	South West	120	5.5	30
23	Colchester	East	115	5.8	30
24	Milton Keynes	South East	100	6.4	29
25	Basildon	East	98	6.5	29
26	Wigan	North West	126	4.9	28
27	Edinburgh	Scotland	69	9	28
28	Liverpool	North West	67	8.9	27
29	Reading	South East	102	5.7	26
30	London	Greater London	81	7.1	26
31	Manchester	North West	58	9	24
32	Cambridge	East	139	3.6	23
33	Ipswich	East	121	4.2	23
34	Glasgow	Scotland	67	7.5	23
35	Bangor (Co. Down)	Northern Ireland	148	3.2	22
36	Oxford	South East	113	4.4	22
37	Wakefield	Yorkshire and the Humber	92	5.2	22
38	Peterborough	East	89	5	20
39	Birmingham	West Midlands	77	5.7	20
40	Swansea	Wales	59	7.6	20
41	Brighton	South East	90	4.8	19
42	Doncaster	Yorkshire and the Humber	81	4.9	18
43	Nottingham	East Midlands	66	5.9	17
44	Cheltenham	South West	97	3.7	16
45	Northampton	East Midlands	70	5.2	16
46	Lisburn	Northern Ireland	132	2.4	15
47	Tyneside	North East	116	2.8	15
48	Bolton	North West	73	4.5	15
49	Canterbury	South East	92	3.3	14
50	Cardiff	Wales	91	3.1	13
51	Darlington	North East	77	3.7	13
52	Coventry	West Midlands	131	1.9	12
53	Dudley	West Midlands	100	2.7	12
54	Luton	East	78	3.3	12
55	Swindon	South West	150	1.6	11
56	Worcester	West Midlands	112	2.1	11
57	Middlesborough	Yorkshire and the Humber	69	3.5	11
58	Belfast	Northern Ireland	102	2.1	10
59	Leeds	Yorkshire and the Humber	80	2.6	9
60	Plymouth	South West	128	1.4	8
61	Warrington	North West	98	1.7	8
62	Rotherham	South East	114	1.4	7
63	Sunderland	North East	66	2.2	7
64	Aberdeen	Scotland	59	2.7	7
65	Hull	Yorkshire and the Humber	110	1.2	6
66	Sheffield	West Midlands	71	1.6	5
67	Bradford	Yorkshire and the Humber	102	1	4
68	Newcastle	North East	100	0.8	4
69	Dundee	Scotland	56	1.1	3

View all

highest call volume

Which town has the highest call volume?

Including inbound and outbound calls, focusing on the call volume by town population, our research has found that these towns have the highest volume of business calls in the UK.

01 Watford, Hertfordshire

Businesses in Watford claimed a call volume of 21%. This means 1 in 5 calls made in the town over the last 6 months were made by chatty businesses!

02 Macclesfield, Cheshire

Businesses in Macclesfield claimed a call volume of 16%. This means around 1 in 6 calls made in the town over the last 6 months were made by chatty businesses!

01 Swindon, South West

Businesses in Swindon spend on average 2.5 minutes (150 seconds) chatting on each phone call.

02 Bangor, Northern Ireland

Businesses in Bangor spend on average just under 2.5 minutes (148 seconds) chatting on each phone call.

Most phone time

Which town spends the most time on the phone?

Including inbound and outbound calls and focusing on the average call duration, our research has found that these towns spend the longest amount of time chatting business over the phone out of all UK towns.

North vS South

Which half of England is the chattiest?

Including inbound and outbound calls and focusing on both average call duration and call volume, we divided English regions into their Northern and Southern family groups and our research established once and for all who’s really chattier - Northerners or Southerners?

01 South

Businesses in the South of England have an average call duration of 1.7 minutes (101 seconds) and a call volume of 7%. This means 1 in 14 calls in the South are made by chatty businesses!

02 North

Businesses in the North of England have an average call duration of 1.5 minutes (92 seconds) and a call volume of 6%. This means 1 in 17 calls in the North are made by chatty businesses!

Research approach

Methodology

The data used to create the Chatterbox Matrix was sourced from CircleLoop’s own internal data. Over a period of 6 months in the latter half of 2021, CircleLoop’s customer data was extracted and anonymised. The specific data points sourced were geographical location or town where the business resides, the call count of inbound and outbound calls and the average call duration of inbound and outbound calls.

Call count figures were then divided by total the town population to produce a call volume percentage that represented the share of calls businesses were making in that town. The Chatterbox Score is ranked out of 100, and combines the number of calls per person with the average call duration. The most ‘chatty’ town or city across these two factors is awarded a score of 100, with all other towns and cities being awarded a score relative to the most 'chatty' location.

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