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That is a powerful statement and a very final one. What in the world could cause a customer to say that? I find it very confusing why companies persist in doing things that customers hate. No customer wants to hear, “We are experiencing unusually high call volumes.” What that says to customers is, senior management has failed to employ enough staff to properly service incoming calls. It didn’t matter what time they call the company, they will ALWAYS get the same message. A simple way to solve that problem is to quit doing business with them. 33% of Americans say they’ll consider switching companies after just a single instance of poor service.
Another statement customers find extremely annoying to hear is, “Your call is very important to us.” If that were true, they would hire more people so that they could answer calls promptly? Or maybe what they really mean, “Your call is very important to us, but your time isn’t”? Last year, 67% of customers hung up the phone out of frustration, because they could not talk to a real person. Here’s a statistic that you should find to be very sobering: 91% of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with you again.
Lauren Freedman, President of the E-tailing Group once said, “Always keep in mind the old retail adage: Customers remember the service a lot longer than they remember the price.” Even in this age of advanced technology and e-commerce, the human side of doing business with a customer is of paramount importance.
The financial services market is highly competitive and just as soon as a competitor comes up with a new product or service, everyone else will have it in short order. BUT, one out of five bank customers move their money every year because of poor customer service; not products, not location, not interest rates … just simply, poor customer service. To lose 20% of your business because of the way you treat customers is appalling. In some industries, that number is even higher. One study I read said 15% of customers left because of quality, 15% because of price, 20% because of lack of attention and 50% because “Contact” from personnel was poor. So, those numbers equate to 70% of the customers who left, did so because of the human side of doing business. OUCH!
A recent Google study revealed that online reviews impact 67.7% of respondents' purchasing decisions. When checking a company out, 50.4% of the people will just look at the first page on Google, 36% will read up to 3 pages, and 13.6% will read 4 pages or more. If you have four or more negative articles about your company or product appearing in Google search results ON THE FIRST FOUR PAGES, you’re likely to lose 70% of potential customers.
The most common reason customers gave for being happy with Apple was not just their amazing products or their stylishly designed stores, it was the way they were treated by store employees. The typical electronics store has average sales of $1,200 per square foot. Apple stores average over $6,500 per square foot. That fact alone shows there are BIG profits in nice & knowledgeable! Customers who feel ignored or mistreated find ways to get even. They drive up service costs, demoralize employees, and will gripe to friends, relatives, colleagues and acquaintances. More than 50% of Americans have scrapped a planned purchase or transaction because of bad service.
There are all kinds of business models out there…B2B, B2C, C2B…but there is only one that matters: H2H – Human to Human. The day you forget you are in business for the customer, is the day you start going out of business. Find out what your customers HATE and quit doing it. On a personal note, there is one last point I’d like to make: I will NEVER do business with a firm who robo-calls my home or office with a computerized message. NEVER!