I was putting finishing touches to a training for one of our clients, and I felt like I needed to share this little part of it with a larger audience. Below are the facts of the reasons why customers quit. This means that customers cease patronizing companies for the following reasons.
1% Die
3% Move away
5% Other friends
9% Competitive reasons
14% Product dissatisfaction
68% The attitude of indifference of an employee
Can you imagine that? The real reason why people leave you or stay is not because of the quality of your product, the inferiority or superiority of the same, but the way they are treated by your staff. And in case you are wondering if you need to shout at a customer before he quits, think again! All you need to do is just act indifferent. An average customer will get the cue, if he/she thinks for a moment his/her patronage makes no difference, you have lost that patronage.
I have sat in many interviews in my life where candidates say that they are interested in customer service. When asked for the skills that they have, they tell you they are friendly! While being friendly is a good thing, it’s different from customer service. Customer service is learning to treat your customers with a difference. A good difference. Customer service is a learnable skill, it can be classroom trained and perfected by practice.
In case you think they’ll just stop doing business with your company, think again! They will not only stop coming, research as shown that the greater majority of them will not even complain about this service to the company. They will move away and share the story with their friends. Here are the facts!
68% of customers who stop patronizing a business do so because an indifferent employee treated them poorly.
96% of dissatisfied customers never complain about rude or discourteous service to the company, but…
-91% will not buy from that business again.
-100% will tell their “horror stories” to at least nine other people.
-13% of those unhappy customers will tell their stories to at least 20 other people.
Think about it, have you ever been dissatisfied with a particular service? Can you remember how many people you told? Did you inform the company officials? Does you answer follow the pattern above? I remember a time when a lady called me in the heat of her displeasure with a product, after she finished venting her anger, I asked her why she was telling me as I have no connection to the company. She told me she just wanted me to know 🙂 I know of companies where people prefer to eat trash, rather than go to a better food supplier that treats them with contempt.
Customer Service standards are extremely important. As options begin to increase and exist, the value of great customer services skills and culture within an organization will begin to matter astronomically. Long time ago in these sides of the world, people will take almost anything from you, today, options are increasing, and people will gravitate towards where they are treated with a difference. I remember some weeks back, when a new friend was telling me how good she felt and how she started contemplating changing her bank to Zenith, just because of how she was treated by the guards! Can you imagine that? Every employee who has any dealing with customers needs to be skilled.
The cost of not developing these skills is costly! Much costlier than the cost of developing them. Look at the facts below.
Treating customers indifferently or poorly costs the average company 15% to 30% of gross sales!
Replacing lost customers is expensive; it costs five times as much to attract a new customer as it does to sell to an existing one!
About 70% of a company’s sales come from existing customers.
Because 20% of a typical company’s customers account for about 80% of its sales, no business can afford to alienate its best and most profitable customers and survive!
Customer service is increasingly becoming a choice skill, get enrolled. You can contact me for further enquiries. I hope this proves useful for you.
