Wake Up People--Customers Demand Great Service
According to a recent customer experience study by RightNow Technologies and Harris Interactive, consumers seem to be more agitated than ever from poor customer experience...and they're not standing for sub-par service any longer
In fact, the study cites that 87 percent of consumers said they've stopped doing business with a company after a negative experience, up from 80 percent in 2007 and 68 percent in 2006. Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow said companies must wake up to these startling statistics. "Consumer expectations will continue to rise and companies will have to do a better job of taking care of them," Gianforte said at the RightNow Summit 08 this week.
With the rise of social media, people have even more outlets at their disposal to share their stories. The study shows that consumers are also more likely than last year to tell someone about their negative experience. "People like to tell good stories, unfortunately not at the same frequency as negative stories," Gianforte said.
The survey also showed that more than half (58 percent) of consumers often pay more for a better customer experience during a down economy. Ron Kelly, vice president, customer care and logistics at Drugstore.com, knows that and is on the cutting edge of delivering a pay-per-service model for his high-value customers. His company will soon launch White Glove Service, in which Drugstore.com will assign high-value consumers a dedicated phone number and agent to place order in that person's behalf.
But even with the most dedicated service, companies will have to turn their CSRs into sales associates. The study also indicated that more than half (58 percent) of consumers are at least somewhat likely to make a purchase during a service engagement.
Jason Mittelstaedt, CMO of RightNow, said that incorporating sales into service is a "good opportunity" in these tough economic times. "We fundamentally believe that in consumer-centric environments, service is the new sales," he said.
Whether or not you follow that belief, the bottom line is that organizations that provide a positive customer experience will not only see brand loyalty and return on their investment, they'll likely weather this economic storm.
That is why more and more companies move to social network sites like Facebook to talk directly to their customers and community
Not only people are getting lost today, but also companies. Though, it may be a chance to stand taller and do better.
Service says miles about what kind of company you're. Quality service comes as a trademark of CRM-minded companies. Simply because customers respond either "thank you" or "no, thank you". A couple of service flops, and chances are that your business will go somewhere. I think the down economy is actually a good thing for many companies who care. Because it gives them a helping hand to differentiate even more, especially at the time of cost-cutting hysteria.
Reading your blog post I'm reminded of the old adage that it costs five times as much for a company to recruit a new customer, as opposed to retaining an existing one. On the flip side, what we've seen is that customers want to be loyal. It's in the best interests of both an organization and a customer to maintain a longstanding relationship. As you allude, the connection between reliability and trust hinges on good customer service -- especially given the economic climate. Companies worldwide are reducing costs and some are making the mistake of targeting expenses tied to the training of customer service agents, who in turn are the front line to the customer experience. That's a huge mistake, in my opinion. A more effective option would be to shore up and invest in customer service efforts, including technology such as workforce optimization, so as not to alienate otherwise loyal customers.
I spotted a very interesting idea last week where a company publicly thanked individual customers by name. It was in their newsletter which has a very wide circulation. A very small action but imagine taking the idea even further with marketing materials. A One to One thank you.
If you want to experiment, you might want to compare the graphic here, where the red arrows highlight a highly negative press for "the Training Guild" back in 2003 with a Google search on them today. Google's memory does dull over a few years, but this is 5 years later, almost to the day, and their unfortunate adjudication result is still very obvious.
Back in 2004 or so some 70 of the first 100 results of that search highlighted the bad press.
Now, that article was newsworthy. Bad service at your local Subway is probably not. But the smell hangs around for years once search engines get hold of it.
I have a highly practical example on my blog. People tell the world about bad experiences.
Search engines have very long memories.
Great post. The social media aspect is one that I think some companies are a little slow to acknowledge. In the past, consumers who had a bad experience may have thought to themselves, "This was an isolated experience--I had just better just stick with them despite the bad service." But as people see others tweeting and blogging their intentions to actually leave companies because of their experiences, they are suddenly empowered to leave too.