How to make 114 people love your business

How to make 114 people love your business

Most businesses lose around 10 to 30 per cent of their customers per year, for which bad customer service accounts for 68 per cent.

This means if you have 100 customers you could lose 20 customers every year due to bad customer service (even if you don’t agree it’s bad!)

These ex-customers will each tell 8-16 people about their bad experience, which means up to 320 people could be thinking bad things about you. And all because you didn’t know your clients were unhappy.

However, if your customers are able to tell you they’re not happy, and you act on this feedback swiftly, you could retain 95 per cent of them — or 19 out of 20.

And this 19 will be so happy they’ll each tell 4–6 people. So you’ll have 114 people thinking brilliant things about your business. And all because you were able to capture and act on customer feedback.

Morals of the story

• Don’t assume you’re giving great service just because you don’t get many complaints. Customers are more likely just to leave.
• Make sure you check for satisfaction (don’t assume “no news is good news”)
• Make sure you have an easy way for clients to get in touch (with good news and bad)
• Make sure you act on this feedback, swiftly, and let all your other customers know you value what they think.

Kerry Morrow is marketing executive at Customer Sure which offers customer service software, including a free 30-day trial.

• Find out more about getting customer feedback in Drayton Bird’s article on how to create effective customer questionnaires.

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