5 Shocking Customer Service Facts Not Everyone Knows

Customer relationship management has become a pillar in every business, web analytics is now into its second decade, and the modern internet has given us accessibility beyond our wildest dreams. I guess by now you’d think we would have everything figured out. Unfortunately, we’re not quite there yet (at least most of us aren’t).

In this day and age, we often get ahead of ourselves and forget that we can still learn a thing or two about customers. With this thought in mind, I decided to research the most interesting and shocking customer service facts out there, hoping that I could find a few gems. To my satisfaction, I did!

While many of the facts I found proved to be quite interesting, there were five in particular that I thought would be nice to share with everyone. Let’s take a look…

1. Less than 10% of dissatisfied customers will lodge a complaint or notify your company of an issue. ^[1]

Smart business owners are aware that customer feedback is potentially the most useful tool for making new discoveries. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to improve a product or service and the world would forever be mediocre. Thank goodness we have all kinds of solid feedback coming our way on a daily basis, right?

Apparently not. Less than 10% is, well, terrible!

I personally found this one to be the most daunting. The only question is: whose fault is it? Do the customers just not care about sharing their dissatisfaction with us, or are we not giving them enough opportunities to express themselves? I’d say regardless of the reason, it will always come down to the latter—we have to find new ways to engage customers and receive feedback, whether the feedback is positive or negative. No business can thrive without it.

2. Resolving or fixing a problem of a complaining customer will result in 80% of similar customers coming back. ^[1]

While the “less than 10%” nugget wasn’t exactly comforting, this one serves as decent mitigation. Not every dissatisfied customer is going to hold up a big sign for us that explains what we’re doing wrong, but if we take the time to help out as many customers as we can, we’ll inevitably drive 80% with similar complaints back for a second round.

This speaks volumes on the importance of customer relationship management. There are all kinds of ways to engage both happy and unhappy customers and organize their feedback so that it can be applied in a practical manner—we just have to actually do it!

3. A recent study reports that 55% of customers recommended a company because of the customer experience. ^[2]

In the modern business world, opinions can spread fast. And they can either work for you or against you. A report titled the Customer Experience Report North America provided this little nugget for us and I think we should all take it to heart.

Want people to start bragging about how great your service is? Put your customer service department into overdrive!

4. According to the same study, 73% of customers who stopped doing business with an organization did so because of rude staff. ^[2]

This fact reinforces the one above. Other reasons for customers ending their business relationships were reactions to unknowledgeable staff and issues not being resolved in a timely manner. Ultimately, it would appear that all signs point to interacting with customers!

The solution? Train your employees in not just one aspect of CRM, but all of them! Sometimes just being nice doesn’t cut it—a customer wants to know that he or she is receiving help from an expert in the field. And it works the same way vice versa—expertise doesn’t trump people skills. Both elements need to come in one package.

5. It costs 6 times more to bring in a new customer than it does to bring back an old one. ^[3]

This may just sound like marketing 101 (or better yet, common sense), but how often do we actually apply such simple logic to our day-to-day operations? The money spent on advertisements and other marketing gimmicks could be used more efficiently to keep existing customers happy and coming back for more.

Now, I’m not saying it isn’t important to attract new customers. In fact, it’s utterly crucial. But it doesn’t hurt to reflect on your efforts once in a while and perhaps take your marketing tactics in a new direction. Besides, what are you going to do with all those customers once you finally have them? How will you keep them around for the long haul?

References:

[1] http://customerservicetools.blogspot.com/2005/08/20-customer-service-facts-you-should.html (Retrieved 8-9-2012)
[2] http://www.makeorbreakmoments.com/2010/11/30/25-customer-relationship-facts-for-2011/ (Retrieved 8-9-2012)
[3] http://www.slideshare.net/ingambra/customer-service-facts (Retrieved 8-9-2012)