If you get into a confrontation or disagreement with a family member in most cases you’re willing to forgive and forget. The same cannot be said for our relationships with our brands.
It’s funny how we’re less likely to forgive brands or individuals representing a brand even though our interaction with them will be short and infrequent. In fact, 68% of the time, customer churn is caused by customers’ feelings of poor treatment (Source: TARP) and 91% of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with an organization again (Source: Lee Resource Inc.).
Organizations now understand that customers do not forgive easily and it has started a new trend in customer service – using support teams to prevent customer churn and differentiate themselves from their competitors.
A well-run support team not only saves on operational costs, but also adds to the bottom line. Attracting a new customer costs 5 times as much as keeping an existing one (Source: Lee Resource Inc). Knowing we don’t forgive so easily helps to justify any upfront costs to keep customers happy. The cost of not keeping customers happy is significant. It takes 12 positive service experiences to make up for one negative experience (Source: “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner).
As customers, what are we willing to do in return for this happiness? We tell people. Happy customers who have their issue resolved tell 4 to 6 people about their experience (Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC). This is more important that ever with wide reaching social media serving as today’s word of mouth.
As an organization, service and support budgets should not be overlooked. In fact, CTOs and CIOs should be looking at how they can move to Cloud 2 technologies. Cloud 2 allows companies to quickly ramp up their teams on scalable, easy to deploy platforms. Organizations suffering from low CSAT scores should look at what tools the team is using to support their clients. Out are the days of green screens, multiple systems, copy and paste; in are unified agent desktops with telephony integration and increased productivity.
