Every business strives to ensure strong customer loyalty. It is, after all, your customers who purchase your products or services. Good ongoing customer relationships are crucial to your business’ sustainability. To wit, your team toils to deliver the best product possible, your marketing team labors to find the perfect promotional language, and your executive team concerns themselves with steering the company.
With all this effort and expense, and even with loyal customers who love your product, you can still lose customers in an instant with a negative customer support interaction. According to our friends at Zendesk, “When customers have a bad service experience, they don’t just get mad, most of the time they try to get even.”
More than 50 percent of frustrated customers tell their friends, family and peers, spreading the word about their negative experience. A whopping 35 percent will stop doing business with the company. And 16 percent will post negative comments on social media and other review sites. This can really damage your company’s reputation considering 60 percent of consumers say they are influenced by others’ comments.
Take a look at the infographic Zendesk produced examining just how bad a reaction your customers may have if your customer support team is not up to the task. Even loyal customers may choose to share their poor experience with friends, broadcast it on social media or simply terminate their relationship with your business.
Overall, the findings point to the relationship between customer experience and revenue, highlighting a critical need for companies to ensure the highest level of customer support. Stop looking at service operations as cost centers, and instead view every interaction as an opportunity to increase satisfaction, build loyalty and grow revenue. While bad customer service hurts your reputation, in the age of social media, good customer service can be your best advertisement.
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